One in a Billion
by StarvingLunatic
Summary: AU. Sequel to The Gods Must Be Laughing. Shego and Kim are now trying to be a regular couple and do the things that they see their friends doing, like get married and have kids. Cover by YogurthFrost at deviantart.
1. Reason One: Which way to go

I don't own these characters and I don't own the original premise of this saga.

A/N: Before reading this, it would be a good idea to read Walking the Line, On a Short Leash, and The Gods Must Be Laughing, if you have not done that already. If you have, why are you reading this a/n then? Move on and read the story, silly.

Check my profile for additional information on this story, as I am pretty sure it's not going to be updated as quickly as I usually do with stories. Also this takes place about a year after the end of The Gods Must Be Laughing.

One in a Billion

Reason One: Which way to go

_Contrary to popular belief there are way more than two ways to do something. Yes, there's a right way and a wrong way, but there's also a Shego way, a Kim way, and most importantly, an Isabel way. It is possible for more than one to happen at once._

It had started out with such a simple phrase followed by a passionate response. It seemed like it would be something easy because of that. It had been so effortless to ask and the respond was the same. It seemed like all of the simplicity should have continued on, they thought. How wrong they were. Who knew that six words could cause so much trouble? The six words consisting of two sentences, a question and an answer. The question: will you marry me? The answer: hell, yeah! Complications then followed.

The complications came when a certain redhead had to tell her mother. Shego told Kim to keep it quiet for just a little while because she did not want a big deal made out of the thing, but Kim just did not listen. The younger woman got on the phone the next morning to tell her mother that Shego proposed to her. Little did Kim know, but her mother informed Shego's mother as soon as Kim hung up.

It was not common knowledge that Ann and Isabel kept in contact with each other. They had taken to each other from the time that they had meant and built a friendship from that, even though Ann had some problems with Shego. Isabel had been working to soothe Ann's nerves over her daughter since the neurosurgeon had decided to accept their daughters' relationship. So, they spoke often and sometimes even met up for lunch if they were free and Isabel was in the area.

Shego glanced at the house phone as it began ringing. She was lounging in the living room of the house on the sofa. Kim was lying in her lap and the redhead looked over at the phone too. She then turned her attention to the older woman. Shego knew what her girl was trying to ask her.

"Look, I'm wise to this trick, okay?" the pale woman informed her slender fiancée.

"You're wise to this trick?" Kim echoed in a puzzled tone. The house phone knew a trick? Wow, she thought that she was the only one that knew any tricks around the house.

"Yeah, I answer the phone and it ends up being my mother," Shego answered. Even if it was not her mother, it would more than likely be someone that she did not desire to speak with, so it was best to not answer in her opinion.

"So?" Kim said while turning to face the green-skinned female.

Shego only snorted and she started caressing Kim's head to hopefully get her to forget about the phone. The redhead practically purred as the attention began. The younger woman was still a sucker for having her head rubbed, even though her pet days were behind her. It still felt so good, she thought as she pretty much melted in Shego's lap.

The phone finally stopped ringing and Shego breathed a sigh of relief. She then turned her attention to the beautiful young woman in her lap and reveled in having her right where she was. She leaned down and kissed Kim.

The redhead grinned to herself as she kissed her fiancée back. That had a nice ring to it, she thought. Shego was her fiancée. It seemed surreal, but the embrace that they were engaged in brought things back to the real world.

The couple was interrupted as Shego's cell phone started going off. She pulled away for a moment to locate the irksome device. It was at the edge of the sofa, sitting innocently when it was anything but for having disturbed their activity. She grabbed the phone and checked the number.

"Damn it," the pale woman cursed.

"Your mother?" Kim guessed.

"Yes. This is your fault, you know," Shego accused her.

"How is it my fault? What did I do?"

"I know your mother called her and told her what happened. See, you might not think our mothers talk and everything, but I know my mother. I know what she's like and I'm not answering this phone," Shego declared and dropped the phone back on the sofa.

"If you don't take her calls, won't she just show up at the house?" Kim pointed out.

Shego thought on that for a moment. Her mother did not know where she lived now…right? Unless, of course, Kim told her mother, which she probably did, which would mean Isabel knew exactly where she lived because all she would have to do was ask Ann for that information. Damn it! She was so screwed.

The pale woman quickly reached for her phone and hoped that she caught the call before her mother gave up. She was too late. Her mother had already left a voice message. Oh, great, she thought sarcastically.

"What happened?" Kim asked because of the look of dread in Shego's eyes.

"She left a message," Shego answered.

"Well, listen to it. The worst it could do is serve as a warning for you to hide because she's coming over," the younger female pointed out.

Shego shrugged to that because her monster made a point; yes, she still thought of and called Kim her monster on occasion. She decided to listen to the voice mail that her mother left. She put it on her speaker phone just to amuse her girl because she knew that her mother was going to be cursing her out over the phone.

"Cassandra Isabella Gooding, how dare your ass get engaged and not have the decency to fucking call me? And then you've got the fucking nerve not to answer my calls! I'm getting on a plane right now to come and beat your narrow ass!" Isabel declared heatedly in the message. "Oh, and tell Kimmie I said hi," she added in a normal, almost happy tone.

Kim laughed while Shego sighed because of the message. It tickled Kim that Isabel had used Shego's full name in the message too. Yes, Shego's middle name was Isabella, after her grandmother. Actually, it was her mother's name too, but she went by "Isabel" to avoid confusion considering Isabella was her mother's name and her grandmother's name. It was a horrible thing in Isabel's opinion.

"This woman hates me," the pale woman said. She was convinced that her mother had it out for her in someway, even though she knew that Isabel did not hate her.

"She's just worried. I told you to call her," the redhead argued.

"Well, I told you not to call your mother. It seems neither of us listens, huh?" Shego countered, as if that made any sense.

"Well, who's going to suffer the most for it?" Kim asked in a smart tone that the older woman took exception to.

"You for asking that question."

"No!" Kim cried and tried her best to get off of the couch before her punishment came, but she just was not fast enough.

Shego grabbed Kim and proceeded to tickle the slender hero. Kim cried out, begging for mercy that she knew would never come. So, she tried to get away, but the more she struggled, the longer the torment lasted. Shego got a kick out of watching Kim trying to wiggle and to bargain her way out of the mess that she talked herself into.

Well, they had simplicity for all of one night thanks to Kim having to tell her mother about the engagement. They told their friends once Kim was done being a smartass in Shego's opinion; it was being tortured in Kim's opinion. They made the mistake of holding the conversations at the same time in the same place; they gave up the information over the phone.

"It's about time you settled down!" Ron hollered in an overjoyed tone over the Kimmunicator.

"What do you mean you're marrying that brat?!" Betty screamed into Shego's ear.

"Could you tell her I'm standing right here?" Kim said to Shego, even though she knew that Betty would not care if she heard her or not. Betty still referred to her as a brat to her face after all.

"Did Shego buy you an engagement collar?" Monique asked over the Kimminucator. Kim had three-way call going on.

"If you tell your ragtag group of monkeys, I'm standing right here," Shego replied to Kim's request.

Shego was fortunate that she was standing right there, though because once they got off their phones, she realized something. She had to go out and buy Kim an engagement ring before her mother showed up. The devil woman would not shut up if she showed up to find Kim without a proper ring on her finger.

"Princess, what size ring do you wear?" Shego asked.

"Why? You don't have to get me a ring," Kim answered.

"I do if I don't want to hear that woman's mouth when she gets here," the green-skinned woman pointed out.

"Why don't you call her and just make up some story about why you missed her call?" Kim suggested.

"What the? Where have you been these past few years? When that woman says she's on a plane, chances are she's actually in a cab on the way to the house! I don't want to get caught by her," Shego replied.

"Well, I could explain it's not that big a deal."

"And she won't listen. Come on, we'll go ring shopping right now and she won't have an excuse to bite my head off and I won't have to break my foot off in her ass," Shego said.

Kim decided against arguing since she knew that things would go smoother that way. She would not mind having a ring to show off to her friends, even though she did not really need one as far as she was concerned. She was willing to bet that it would feel something akin to magnificent to have a ring on her finger from her beloved symbolizing Shego's willingness to marry her too. She trotted up to the bedroom to change into some outside clothes.

Shego just stood around for a moment. She could not believe that she had actually proposed. It had not been as hard as she thought it would have been. It probably seemed to come out of the blue to Kim since they had just been lying in the bed about to go to sleep when she popped the question. Shego was not even sure what made her ask such an important question at the moment that she had, but she did not regret it. She really did want to marry Kim. Maybe it was about time, especially since they were the only ones out of everyone that they knew that was not married.

She decided to stop thinking about the proposal and went to get dressed herself. She and Kim got dressed and went to the door to leave the house. Shego opened the door as soon as her mother was posed to knock.

"Fuck," Shego said the moment she locked eyes with Isabel.

"How dare you!" Isabel shouted and then she noticed Kim. "Hi, dearie."

"Hi," Kim said and she waved a little. Isabel smiled a bit and then turned her attention back to her daughter. A frown conquered Isabel's face as soon as she focused back on Shego.

"You spoiled little brat! How dare you get engaged and not tell me the moment it happens!" the middle-aged martial artist hollered at Shego and she poked the pale woman in between her collar bone with a manicured index finger.

"Mommy, chill that shit!" Shego ordered while backing away to hopefully stop the hitting, even though it was far from vicious. It was demeaning, though especially in front her fiancée.

"I will not! How dare you!" Isabel screamed and she just grabbed Shego by her shirt collar. It seemed that she really planned beat Shego's ass for her transgression.

"Whoa! Isabel, Isabel, Isabel! It's not what you think!" Kim said because she did not want to see her fiancée beaten up in front of her, especially not by the woman's mother.

"It's not what I think? So, she didn't ask you to marry her?" Isabel inquired.

"No, she did do that," the redhead answered, though she knew that response would not help.

"Then it is just what I think!" Isabel declared while turning her attention back to her daughter, who was definitely going to get it.

"Mommy, I was going to tell you!" Shego lied. Funny how she always swore that she could and would kick her mother's ass if given the chance, but with it staring her in the face right now, a huge part of her mind just wanted to find a way out of the possibly dying by her mother's hands. Another part of her was actually ashamed to have anger her mother to the point where the woman was grabbing her rather violently.

"When?" the middle-aged martial artist demanded to know.

"Um….soon?" Shego guessed.

"Oh, yeah, that's believable," Isabel snarled.

"Damn it, Princess, this is all your fault!" Shego said. "And I will get you back for it," she added in a tone that made Kim pout.

"Don't try to blame her," Isabel said to her daughter.

"Mommy, it's not that serious! I just proposed last night. It wasn't even really planned, okay? So, why don't you get the fuck up out of my face?" Shego suggested, trying to regain some of her composure.

"Why don't you make me get the fuck out of your face?" Isabel countered.

"You just want an excuse to get into a fight. I'm not going to give you one. Stop being so fucking pissed for no fucking reason. Okay, fine, I didn't tell you. I was going to tell you eventually. Maybe not today and maybe not tomorrow, but eventually," the pale woman informed her mother.

Isabel seemed to consider that and then she released Shego. It sometimes stunned Kim how Isabel and Shego interacted. They were so rough with each other and said things that Kim could never imagine saying to her mother or having her mother say to her. But, it seemed to work for the pair.

"How long is eventually?" Isabel asked her daughter.

"It's eventually. I mean, you know I couldn't just end up getting married and not tell you. I know you'd find out sooner or later anyway. I just didn't want to have to put up with your 'oh, firefly, you're getting married' bullshit," Shego explained.

"But, firefly, you're getting married!" Isabel smiled broadly and embraced her daughter. It was almost like she was not looking to rip Shego's throat out with her bare hand mere seconds ago.

"Oh, god! Mommy stop hugging me! Stop hugging me!" Shego begged and tried her best to escape the embrace. It was damn near creepy to be hugged by her mother.

"I've waited for this day for so long!" Isabel actually lifted Shego off of her feet while continuing to hug her.

"Stop hugging me, you damned emotional cow!" the green-skinned female shouted.

Isabel got in one last good squeeze before releasing her daughter. She then turned her attention to Kim and embraced the redhead. Kim groaned, unaccustomed to receiving crushing embrace rather than giving the hug.

"I'm so glad you for, Kimmie," Isabel said.

"Thank you," Kim grunted out.

"But, you do realize this means you'll be stuck with this cranky woman for the rest of your life, don't you?" Isabel pointed out while releasing the redhead.

"That's what I've wanted since I met her," Kim answered with a laugh.

"If anything, I'm the one that's going to suffer from this in the long run," Shego remarked.

"You shouldn't have proposed then," Isabel retorted. Shego only stuck her tongue out at her mother for lack of a better comeback. The middle-aged woman could care less than nothing about that act. "So, when's the date? Where are you going to have the wedding? How big do you plan on having it?" Isabel asked.

"We haven't thought on any of that stuff. I haven't even gotten her a ring yet, okay? So, save your questions," the daughter answered.

"What do you mean you haven't gotten her a ring? How did you propose without a ring?" Isabel inquired as if such a thing were not possible in the known universe.

"I opened my fucking mouth and asked, doy," Shego replied.

Isabel sighed. Did her daughter just not know how to be romantic? She was supposed to make everything special for Kim since the girl was the love of her life. Only Shego, Isabel thought while shaking her head in a disapproving manner, which Shego knew was for her, even though her mother had not said anything.

"What? What did I do now?" Shego inquired.

"Cassandra, I know I've raised you better than this," Isabel said.

"Watch the name," Shego growled.

"You were supposed to go all out for this. You love Kim with all of your stone-cold, black heart," Isabel remarked. "You were supposed to go out and buy her a beautiful diamond ring, take her to the best restaurant, get down on one knee, propose to her by explaining how your life would be devoid of happiness without her, and have the finest wine on hand for when she accepted."

"Why? Is that what Dad did?" the moss-hued woman commented with a rather disinterested expression on her face.

"Oh, your father went all out. A candle lit dinner was involved as were two dozen long stem roses, but don't get me started," Isabel replied.

Shego only rolled her eyes. She could give less than a damn about how her father proposed to her mother. It was not like a great proposal led to a fantastic marriage between the two. If anything, she did not want to do anything like her parents because she did not want her and Kim to end up like that. After all, her parents were somewhat separated most of the time and when they were together, it did not take much to put them at odds with each other. She did not want her relationship to be anything like that.

"Look, Kimmie didn't mind the way I proposed," Shego pointed out and Kim backed her by nodding.

Kim was just happy that the question came. She had been with Shego for five years now. Sure, most of those years she had been looked at as a pet, but that had gradually changed, even while she was still being called a pet. She had been ready to stay with Shego forever since she started staying with Shego, so the idea of marriage only made her happy. She did not care how the notion was presented. It was definitely the thought and desire that counted.

"Still, you should have done something spectacular for her," Isabel argued.

"She didn't need me to do anything spectacular," Shego stated, but some part of her was thinking that maybe her mother had a point. She should have done something grand for Kim to show just how much the redhead meant to her.

"After everything you put her through, I think she at least deserves something unbelievably wonderful," Isabel retorted.

Shego was about to argue further, but before she could open her mouth, the debate was interrupted. The Kimmunicator started going off. Kim quickly grabbed it and answered it, even though it was supposed to be her day off.

"What's the sitch, Wade?" the redhead inquired.

"High tech robbery, you might want to get on it right away. It's at a lab right outside Go City," Wade answered.

"No problem. You got a ride for me?" Kim asked. She figured that she might as well help out since Shego and Isabel seemed content on wasting the day yelling at each other.

"Of course. The car's waiting right outside your house. You'll know the driver," Wade informed her.

"Okay." Kim nodded and then she turned her attention to her lover.

"Go ahead," Shego sighed. She knew that Kim was looking at her just because she wanted to know if it was all right for her to run out while there seemed to be a crisis in the house.

The petite hero smiled and gave Shego a farewell hug. She also kissed Shego before bidding both older women goodbye. She then exited the house and trotted out to see who her ride was. Shego shut the door behind her exiting girl.

"I can't believe you," Isabel said to her daughter.

"Shut up and help me," Shego replied.

"Help you what?" the older woman inquired curiously.

"What else? Help me set up something romantic while she's gone," the green-skinned female stated. She had never been so glad to see Kim leave for a mission than she was at the moment. It gave her a chance to do things right now and let it be a surprise.

"What?" Isabel appeared rather bewildered about what her daughter was requesting.

"Look, I'm not going to say it again and I damn sure won't say you were right, but now that I have the chance, I could set up something really nice and present her with a really nice ring while I'm at it. So, help me or get the fuck out," Shego explained.

"Of course I'll help," Isabel replied. "But, for the record, I'm always right."

"The hell you are. Any person that can give birth to Hego and still love him as he grows up to be an asshole can't be all that great," the younger woman remarked.

"You're awful," the middle-aged female commented.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's get moving. Who knows how long she'll be gone," Shego pointed out.

Isabel nodded and they left in rush. She was glad to be a part of something that involved Shego doing something special for Kim. She could not believe that her daughter had actually proposed, even though she had done it in a very unromantic manner. It was just amazing because hardly a year ago, Shego tried to swear that she only thought of Kim as a pet, even though it was clear that Kim was so much more.

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Kim returned to the house, desiring nothing more than to grab a shower and then to get cuddled on the sofa. It would be a good end to a trying day. The high tech robbery had turned out to be an inside job and she had quickly tracked down the person responsible for what happened. The tiring thing about the day was that the person could run, very, very fast. Also, the person could fight a little bit, so she got a bit of a workout. It was nothing extremely serious, but she was ready to relax.

When the redhead entered the house, she saw all of the lights were out. She craned an eyebrow. Maybe Shego was gone, she thought. She went upstairs to take her shower since it seemed that she was home alone. Halfway through her shower, she heard the bathroom door open.

"Shego?" Kim said.

"I'm just putting some stuff up," Shego replied.

"Okay. You want—?" Kim tried to offer, but she was cut off.

"I can't join you at the moment. I'm doing something," the moss-hued woman answered. Kim pouted, which Shego guessed she was doing. "Don't pout, Princess. I've got a surprise for you," the older female said.

"You do?" Kim asked in a hopeful tone.

"Indeed I do."

Kim heard the door shut before she could ask anymore questions. She quickly finished her shower and dressed because she wanted to find out what the surprise was. She threw on some house clothes, just some shorts and a tank-top. She then went to find out where Shego was.

The redhead checked the bedroom first; it was apparent what she hoped the surprise involved. The bedroom was empty and the lights were out. It would seem that the surprise was not what she wanted it to be, but ah well. She still wanted to know what the surprise was.

She traveled downstairs and noticed that it was still dark. She went to check the living room and before she even entered the room, she noticed that there was a fire in the fireplace. She was curious, so she started taking steps toward the living room. As she got closer, little flames from candles began popping up and Kim could make out Shego's silhouette lighting the candles. By the time she was in the living room, the candles were all lit and Kim could make out a blanket on the floor with a meal spread out on it.

"This is the surprise?" Kim inquired in an amazed tone. She liked it so far. It was rare for them to have a true romantic moment.

"This is the start. Come on, sit down," Shego beckoned her girl and added to that by motioning to herself with her index finger.

Kim might as well have been on a string with the way that she went over to Shego. The pale woman sat Kim down in front of her plate, which held ziti. The younger female grinned at the sight of pasta, which Shego expected. Kim was not very hard to please, the emerald-eyed woman thought with a smile.

"What did I do to deserve this?" Kim wondered aloud.

"Stop acting like it's something so great," Shego said.

"It is!" Kim insisted. A romantic picnic in the living room with candle light and the fireplace going? It was like a wonderful dream. Add to that the meal in front her and that made it more like a fantasy.

Shego only shook her head. Once again Kim was making her feel as if the world revolved around her, which was something that the younger female did pretty much every day. Kim did deserve a better proposal than the one that she gave her, Shego silently conceded. Kim deserved the most romantic proposal a person could offer up.

They sat quietly and ate the meal of ziti and toasted, buttered bread. Shego had made ziti because it was the one pasta that she enjoyed, although she did not enjoy it as much as Kim did. She doubted that there was a creature in existence that loved pasta as much as little redhead did.

"This is great," Kim declared with a smile as Shego poured her a glass of wine.

"I figured you'd like it," the pale woman commented with a smile of her own.

"You were so right!" Kim grinned.

Shego smiled again and they sat there, having a quiet dinner. It was lovely to just sit there and not have to worry about what to talk about or be worried that someone was going to say something stupid or annoying or judgmental. And when they were done, Kim leaned over and kissed Shego for no reason other than the fact that she was enjoying the evening so far.

"You're such an affectionate little monster," Shego remarked when the kiss was done.

"Your affectionate little monster," Kim replied.

"That you are. I've got something for you," Shego said.

"Something more than this?"

Shego smiled softly and then stood up. She walked out of the room for a moment and then returned. She was holding a huge bouquet of red, long stem roses; hey, it was her mother's idea. Kim's mouth fell open when she saw them.

"For me?" Kim asked in disbelief.

"Yeah, and you'd better work real hard to keep them alive for as long as possible. They cost a small fortune," Shego replied while handing the flowers over.

Kim only smiled as she cradled the roses in her arms. She had never gotten flowers before, except for her parents when she graduated high school. She hugged the roses as if they were a toy of some kind, which made Shego happy because she knew that Kim liked the flowers. It was not something that Shego understood nor was it something that she wanted to spend her money on until that very moment when she saw Kim's expression.

"There's still more," Shego informed the redhead.

"More? Is this a trick or something?" Kim asked suspiciously.

"Why do you always think something's a trick?" Shego countered.

"Because you're being so blatantly nice. It's usually a trick," the redhead explained.

"It's not a trick this time. You should be more trusting of me," the older woman said, more teasing than serious.

"I do trust you to pick on me every chance you get."

"Well, you shouldn't make it so fun and easy to do."

Kim laughed a little bit and then decided to smell her roses. She grinned as she inhaled the fragrance. Shego shook her head; her monster sure was too cute.

"Kim, I want to ask you something," Shego said in a very serious tone.

"What?" the redhead asked with almost a sense of dread. Shego never called her "Kim." The closest Shego got to her real name was "Kimmie." It was a little unsettling to hear.

Shego gulped and repositioned herself on the floor by bending down on one knee. Her heart beat began to speed up and she realized that she was nervous, despite the fact that she knew how things were going to go. Oh, man. She could not imagine going through it all in a crowded restaurant with people staring and being even a little unsure of what the answer might be. She might have actually fainted in such a situation and someone like her should never faint, in her opinion.

"Okay, Kim, I know it might have started out as a pet name, but over the years you've really become a princess to me and I want to honor as you as such for the rest of my life. I will treat you like royalty forever and always if you would do me the honor of marrying me?" Shego asked for a second time. It was much better the second time around.

Kim was speechless for a moment, even though they both knew what the answer was going to be. Shego took the moment to reach into her pocket and pull out a small, black box. She opened it to reveal a gold band lined with small diamonds all around. Kim looked ready to pop when she saw the ring.

"Um…Pumpkin, gonna need an answer here," Shego reminded her girl.

"YES! Doy!" Kim replied while flinging herself into Shego's arms and accidentally knocking the ring, box and all, out of her hand.

"AH!" Shego hollered in pure distress while searching on the dark floor for the small ring. "Aw, you lost it!"

"What? You can't blame me for that!" Kim objected.

"You're the one that's always hugging me! Help me find it!" Shego said in a panic. That thing cost almost an entire paycheck!

The two separated and began searching the floor for Kim's engagement ring. After a couple of minutes of looking, Shego got the good sense to turn on the lights and look for the ring. They spotted the box only to find that it was empty.

"Ah, damn it," Shego groaned. The perfect evening ruined by an enthusiastic hug. She should have brought an engagement necklace, something that could not roll away thanks to her energetic Princess. "I'm never proposing to you again," Shego remarked.

"Don't worry, we'll find it," Kim assured the older woman with a bright smile that only she could mutter after losing her own engagement ring. Shego sighed, but she believed Kim. They would find the ring.

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Next time: a third proposal?


	2. Reason Two: Equally precious

I don't own these characters or the original premise behind this saga.

Reason Two: Equally precious

_When someone does something special and makes you feel like you're the highlight of the person's life, doesn't it make it you want to do the same for that person?_

"Girl, that ring is banging," Monique declared and Yori could only nod in agreement when they caught sight of Kim's engagement ring. It was all that and more, they were certain of that, which might explain why they got even more excited for their friend than they already were when Kim showed them the ring for the first time. They both hugged the redhead almost as hard as they could when she flashed them the band.

Kim and Shego had spent most of last night looking for the ring after it got away from them thanks to the overdone hug Kim dished out when Shego presented her with the band. It had rolled under the sofa and behind one of the thick, short legs of the couch. They did not come across it until Shego lifted the sofa up completely and Kim crawled under it. And there was the wayward ring, lying as if everything was all right.

"I like it too and that's why I have to pick out one that's equal to this for Shego," Kim informed her friends.

"Did she request that?" Yori asked curiously. She inquired because she knew that when Ron proposed to her, she did not have to run out and get him a ring. She considered that it might be different for the redhead since she was involved in a same-sex relationship, but she was not sure.

"Of course she didn't request that. Kim just feels like she has to match her ring to show Shego that she feels the same way. Come on, Yori, you know Kim," Monique pointed out and the ninja nodded again.

"So, what do you have in mind?" Yori asked.

"No clue and that would be why you two are here and we're going to the mall. We're going to find something totally spanking!" Kim declared with an enthusiastic grin that they had come to expect of her. She had called her friends out to loan her their fine eyes and help in finding Shego a lovely ring to show off like she was getting the chance to do.

"Do you have the money for something totally spanking?" Monique inquired with a skeptical expression on her face.

Kim suddenly deflated for a moment and then she wrapped her arm around Monique's shoulders. "Can you not bring me down with relevant questions?" the redhead requested in a semi-serious tone.

"Are we to loan you money again?" Yori asked curiously. She had no problem loaning Kim money. Being a trust fund baby and having a job at a school gave her more money than she needed.

"Well…if necessary, please?" Kim replied with a slightly pathetic look on her face to assist in them giving in.

"Girl, you need to learn the value of money," Monique chastised her best friend. Kim pouted because of that answer. Monique shook her head. "No, no, no. Don't even try that. You need to learn the value of money and it's a good time to start," the chocolate-eyed female declared.

Kim went into full fledge puppy-dog pout mode. Her friends groaned and they silently promised themselves that it was not going to work for once. They would be like steel because Kim did need to learn the value of money. She needed to stop giving every penny that she had away to anyone that she saw with a cup or a sign.

Kim continued on with her ultimate weapon against her friends. They turned away to not see the expression, but they could just feel its evil radiating from the redhead and changing their opinions. They turned back to her and sighed.

"Fine, we'll loan you the money if you need it," Monique conceded. At least Kim always paid the money back within a month's time, but she still needed to understand that she needed to keep her own money.

"Spanking!" Kim cheered.

"We should request that she teach us that tactic," Yori commented, speaking to Monique about the puppy-dog pout.

"It isn't going to help us against her," the chocolate-eyed woman pointed out.

Yori nodded one more time to that one. Knowing the scheme would not save them from it and Kim could attest to that. Her mother used it against her on occasion, after all. They really had no need for it, anyway. She used it mostly on Shego now. They did not have the same peculiar relationship with their spouses as she had with her lover.

"Okay, let's go out and get a banging ring to hang out with that thing on your finger," Monique stated.

"Something that Shego could show off like you," Yori added, getting into the spirit.

"Yes!" Kim grinned. She loved the friends that she had because they were just as hyped as she was in assisting her find a piece of jewelry from her beloved. They went to several malls looking for the perfect ring for Shego.

--------------

"Man, it feels good to be home," Shego sighed as she entered the house and she just automatically braced herself for what she knew was coming.

"Welcome home!" Kim shouted as she dashed over to Shego and embraced the older woman.

It was the same almost every day still. Shego had once thought that the energetic hugs were going to stop once Kim was totally out of the pet zone, but that was not the case. In fact, Kim still acted pretty much the same as she had when she was a pet; it was just a part of who she was when she was around the pale woman now. She did not whine as loudly, but she still did it quite often. She even still threw tantrums on some occasions. Shego only pretended to mind, as usual.

"Hey, Princess," Shego greeted the redhead. She leaned down and gave Kim a small kiss on the corner of her mouth.

"Hey, how was your day?" the younger female inquired while continuing to hang on Shego, even though the green-skinned officer was walking further into the house. Shego just picked Kim up to make the trek easier, holding the smaller female on her hip like one would do with a child.

"Same old, same old. Are you going to let me go or are you coming with me upstairs while I get out of these clothes?" the older woman inquired.

"Do you even have to ask? I mean, one of those involves me getting to see you undress," Kim pointed out.

The raven-haired officer laughed; she should have seen that coming. Fine, so she was carrying Kim upstairs now. She had no problem with that plan or doing it. She went upstairs and sort of dropped Kim on their queen-sized bed. The olive-eyed scientist made herself comfortable while Shego changed into some house clothes. When Shego was done, she turned her attention to Kim.

"So, you want to watch some TV?" Shego asked.

"Actually, I want to do something better than watch TV," Kim answered.

Many things went through Shego's mind as that response came. With Kim, something "better than watch TV" could be almost anything. Topping that list would be carnal pleasure and that was what Shego was going to tag and shoot down.

"Sorry, Princess, but I'm not taking off the clothes I just put on," the raven-haired female informed her fiancée with a taunting smile.

"No, no, no. Not that…although now that you put it out there, I'm going to keep it in mind for later," Kim remarked.

"Then what do you want from my life now?"

Kim only smiled in response. She rolled off of the bed and stood before Shego. The cantankerous woman looked rather irked for no reason other than the fact that she seemed to like acting annoyed, especially when it came to the decided love of her life. Kim took Shego's hand and held it in her own, which made the older female rather curious as to what was going on.

"I thought about all the ways I could do this and still give it some meaning, even though we both know the outcome. Still, I wanted to do this. Shego, I love you with everything I have in me and I know I always will. I can't tell you how long I've felt this way, but I know it'll always last. I don't think there are words to describe how happy you make me feel, especially when you proposed and I would love nothing more than to return that feeling. So, Shego…" Kim paused for a moment to get down on one knee. "Would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?"

Shego was confused for a moment. Was it not redundant for her already fiancée whom she just proposed to twice in as many days to propose to her now? It did not make any sense to her, but that suddenly did not matter when she felt a ring slide onto her left hand. She looked down and saw Kim slipping the band on. Shego inexplicably felt a rush of emotion, even if the proposal was redundant.

"You're trying to make me cry again, aren't you?" Shego accused her elfish girlfriend in a teary tone. The "again" referred to when she cried back when she first declared her love for Kim because she was feeling that kind of flood of emotions. She felt so unlike herself thanks to Kim, but it did not bother her because it was Kim.

"I just want you to know what it feels like to have someone care so much and want to be with you all the time that the person proposes," the redhead replied.

Shego sniffled and the smaller female stood up. They hugged each other. Kim did not bother to point out that she had not gotten an answer to her question. Shego was too caught up in the moment and she was just going to let Shego enjoy it. After all, she got to enjoy it twice.

"Sure, Pumpkin, I'll be your wife," Shego answered after a full minute.

"Good to know," Kim commented. "Now, how about kissing me before I explode?" she requested in a whine.

Shego laughed and wasted no time in fulfilling that request, hoping to convey the feeling that she was experiencing into the kiss. She felt as if she had won a billion dollar lottery, but even better. It really should not feel so good to be proposed to by someone she already proposed to, twice in fact! She was glad that it did feel so good, though. The feeling let her know that she had done the right thing. She was supposed to be with Kim for all eternity.

----(New day)

"Um…Shego," Betty said.

"Huh?" Shego said in a daze. She was sitting at her desk, minding her own business in her opinion. Zoning off in her boss's opinion, but then again, no one asked for Betty's opinion.

"Maybe you should go home," the one-eyed woman suggested.

"Why do you say that?" Shego inquired. She was more daydreaming than listening to the chief. She was staring her at her left hand while resting her head in her right one. There was a glazed over look in her emerald eyes, which showed that she was not in the office mentally.

"Well, because I've been trying to give you this assignment for the past minute and you only just realized I'm even standing here," Betty explained.

"Uh-huh," Shego agreed in a manner that showed she did not even have a clue as to what her boss was going on about.

Betty sighed and shook her head. She handed the assignment off to the nearest officer and then turned her attention back to Shego, who was still lost in her own little fantasy world. Betty wondered what was so fascinating about Shego's left hand that had her on another planet pretty much and then she noticed it. She laughed a little and smiled, nowhere near the reaction that she had last time that she saw a ring on Shego's left hand.

"That ring looks a little expensive. How'd your brat buy it, borrow money from you?" the one-eyed woman teased.

"Huh?" Shego said, still zoned out for the most part.

"Damn it, Shego. Tell me about the ring or go home," Betty ordered. She was secretly curious about the band that her friend was sporting. It did look rather expensive with a line of emeralds around a band of white gold.

"The ring? Oh, it's nothing!" Shego insisted as she finally reentered the real world. She put her left hand down, hiding it underneath her desk.

"No, it's too late to try to act like yourself now. Tell me about the damn ring," the older female commanded.

Shego sighed. "All right, fine," she conceded as if it pained her to do so. She picked her hand back up to admire the ring again and allow Betty get a good look, hoping that the one-eyed woman knew that it topped her engagement ring by far.

In reality, Shego would have loved nothing more than to tell any and everyone willing to listen about her engagement ring. It was just that it was not something someone like her should do, so she was trying her best to contain the joy. But, she guessed that she could tell Betty and that would hopefully sate her desire to let the world know that she had the greatest girl on the planet who had brought her an extremely beautiful engagement ring. Shego beamed before she began speaking and Betty considered that she might actually want to run, very fast. Shego seeming giddy like a school girl had to be a sign of the oncoming apocalypse.

"Kimmie proposed to me and this is the engagement ring she brought," Shego practically squealed. Her expression of delight was bordering on her looking scatterbrained, but she could give less than a damn about that.

Betty was seriously reminding herself where the emergency exits were. It was just extremely weird to see Shego acting…well…like a girl in love. It was too new and too strange, but Betty knew that she had to deal with it. After all, Shego had dealt with it when she had gotten engaged to Dahntay.

Shego might contend that she put up with more when Betty got engaged to Dahntay. It was like an alien had taken over her best friend. It was almost impossible to antagonize Betty during that time and it was a little annoying. She was always smiling back then too and seeming to make it a point to be nice to even the stupidest person working for her. Shego had not liked Betty acting so unlike herself, but now she did not notice that she was doing the same thing.

"The brat proposed to you? Didn't you propose to her already…twice?" Betty inquired in a puzzled tone. Why was it those two never made any sense?

"Yeah, but she proposed to me too," Shego answered with a lighthearted smile. "It was so sweet."

"Why would she propose to you after you proposed to her?" Betty asked.

"She wanted me to know how it felt."

The one-eyed woman was not following. How the hell would Shego know how it felt when the outcome was already determined? Why was she even trying to understand, she asked herself. After all, her best friend was now engaged to a girl that started out as her pet. There was no way that those two would ever make sense no matter how long they lived.

"Did it work?" Betty asked just to egg Shego on.

"Yeah," the pale woman answered in a dreamy tone.

The boss was surprised by that answer for some reason, even though Shego's demeanor made it an obvious answer. She just did not understand how being proposed to by her fiancée could do anything. They were already engaged. Another proposal should have been meaningless, but obviously not considering how Shego was acting.

"So, when and where is the wedding?" Betty asked curiously.

"I don't know," Shego answered. Betty was starting to harsh her mellow with relevant questions. She just wanted to bask in the glow of her stunning engagement ring for the moment.

"Don't you think you and the brat need to start figuring that out? You don't want your mother to start sticking her nose in it, do you?" the older woman pointed out.

And the mellow was totally shattered right there. Betty might as well have hit her with a tactical nuclear device, Shego figured. The pale woman's expression completely dropped. Her left hand fell to her side. Her mother getting in on planning her wedding? There was not a snowball's chance in Hell that she was going to allow that to happen!

"I need to go home," Shego declared as she stood up and hurried away from her desk.

The one-eyed woman saw that coming. She would have done the same thing if she was in Shego's place. Her mother had actually tried to come and run shop over her wedding to Dahntay, which was not too long ago. It had been an eventful few days when her mother had showed up, but in the end, she got the old woman to sit back, shut up, and enjoy the stupid ceremony. Granted she had to sit her mother between Isabel and Shego to get that to happen, but it did happen.

She had had a big, traditional wedding, in a church and everything, even though she was far from any kind of Christian. She highly doubted that Shego would go for that, even if she had been in a traditional relationship. There were several reasons why she knew that Shego would never have a traditional relationship and the number one reason was the fact that Isabel had been married in a church. The day that Shego voluntarily or happily did something like her mother would be the day the sun was blown out like a candle.

--------------

Shego ran to her car and nearly killed about a dozen people on the way home. She was not even sure if Kim was at the house and she would probably be extremely pissed if Kim was not, especially since she ran a bunch of lights to get there quickly. She tapped the trash cans with her bumper as she pulled up to the house. She dashed into the house, kicking her shoes off at the door.

The first place that she went to check was the living room. Kim was lying on the sofa, as expected. The redhead was knocked out, which was also expected. She was wearing house clothes, which showed that Kim was sporting some bandages; she had recently gotten in from a mission.

"Princess! Wake up!" Shego commanded as she fell to Kim's side and began shaking the petite hero.

"Wha?! I didn't eat the cake!" the olive-eyed adventurer insisted as she woke up with a shock.

"What cake?" Shego asked curiously because she had a slice of cheesecake waiting for her in the fridge. If her imp had the nerve to eat that cake, she was going to wail on the brat like never before.

"Huh? Who said anything about cake?" the redhead inquired while yawning and gaining some control over herself as she realized that she was awake.

"You said something about cake."

"Oh." Kim laughed nervously. "I guess I was just having a dream about cake," she said with a smile.

"I'm sure," the pale woman commented sarcastically.

"Um…yeah, so what's with the rude wake up call?" Kim asked to change the subject. She also desired a reason for why she was being taken from such a heavenly rest in such a vicious manner. Usually, she got to woken by having her scalp caressed, which made waking up well worth it.

"We need to talk about the wedding."

"Right now?" the slender scientist inquired in a puzzled tone.

"Yes, right now," Shego stated soundly.

"Okay, well, what do you want to talk about?" the younger woman asked while yawning again. She scratched the top of her head and then rubbed her eyes to make sure that she was totally up.

"When do you want to get married? What kind of wedding do you want? Where do you want it?" Shego inquired in an almost frantic tone. They needed to get that all sorted out posthaste, before Isabel made another appearance as far as she was concerned.

"I don't know. I haven't thought about it," Kim admitted. She was still spinning in a cloud of bliss from the proposal. She figured once that great feeling wore off, she would start thinking about the actual event or she might overwhelm herself.

"Well, start thinking about it," Shego ordered.

"What, right now?" Kim asked in a puzzled tone.

"Yes, right now!"

"I don't really feel like it," the younger woman replied with a shrug, which only set her fiancée off more.

"Don't be so nonchalant about these things!" Shego hollered and she grabbed Kim by her shirt. "Do you know what'll happen if we don't get this worked out?" she asked in a panic. She so did not want to see her mother again.

"No, I don't. Is the Earth going to fly out of its orbit if I don't work this out?" Kim asked curiously and it could be seen in her eyes that she was about to start imagine that one, so Shego decided to cut that out before it even began.

"Don't even think about it," the raven-haired officer commanded and she started shaking her little monster.

"But, wouldn't it—" Kim started to say because she was about to go into if the Earth flew out of orbit.

"No, it wouldn't. Now, start thinking about how you want this wedding to go before I make you sleep in the hall," the pale woman threatened and she thumped the redhead in the nose.

"Ah! Domestic violence!" Kim pretended to cry and she covered her nose with her hands.

"Come on, Kimmie, we need to think about this. If we don't, soon my mother is going to burst through the door with a billion suggests that I don't want to hear and she's not going to listen to me. I want this to be something that we created, not something that was born in that woman's sick, diseased mind," Shego explained.

Shego really did want their union to be something that was theirs and theirs alone. She would take help if they needed it, but she wanted the foundation of the wedding to be from their minds. She especially did not want her mother's input for the most part. She just wanted her mother to show up when it was supposed to happen and shut up through the whole matter. It was a lot to ask for, she knew, but a woman could hope.

"Oh, okay, well if you put it that way…" Kim trailed off as she changed her sitting position to a thinking position, folding her legs underneath her and propping her arm up on her knee to lean her head in her hand. "What do you think of getting married soon?" she asked.

"How soon?" Shego asked suspiciously.

"I don't know, soon. Like next week!" Kim grinned.

"Too soon, Pumpkin. We don't have anything prepared for next week, unless you want to elope, which I wouldn't mind," Shego admitted with a small shrug and then she leaned back against the sofa.

"Well, it wouldn't be so bad, but our mothers would kill us once they found out. So, I guess we really should plan for our funerals if we do that," Kim remarked.

"Good point," Shego concurred.

"Well, where would you like to get married? I mean, you know I don't really mind. This is actually enough for me. You didn't even have to propose. I would have been more than content to just stay here with you like this," the redhead explained with an elfish smile.

"What do you think about getting married on a beach?" the pale woman inquired. She figured that they were going to have to research a few places with beaches that would legally marry them. She thought that it would be a nice setting, though.

"So you can sunbathe and I can jet ski right after?" Kim asked with a hopeful expression.

"No, we're not going to do that right after the wedding. People are going to want to eat or something before we get to anything like that," Shego replied, quite seriously. Once everything was said and done, she would not mind getting some sunbathing in.

"Yeah, I guess people are going to want to eat and probably say a few words and everything. So, you want to get married on a beach? I wouldn't mind that. Are we both going to wear white dresses?"

Shego made a face. It was not so much that she was against the idea of wearing a dress to the wedding, but wearing white. She never wore white, even when she was a child. Her mother used to try to dress her in white and she would tear the clothes when Isabel was not looking. She would then offer up a very innocent smile along with an "oops, guess I can't go outside in this."

"What's wrong, Shego?" Kim asked curiously when she noticed the older woman's expression.

"I don't want to wear a white dress," Shego answered.

"Oh, well, you don't have to. I don't think it's a rule or anything like that. So, what color dress would you wear? Black and green or just one of those colors?"

"I don't know. I don't think I should wear black to our wedding. I mean, it's a wedding, our wedding."

"Yeah, but you shouldn't do something you don't like," the redhead replied with a shrug. "I mean, it probably would look a little weird for me to be dressed in white and you'd be dressed in black, but there's nothing wrong with that."

"Maybe I could wear a tux," Shego mused aloud. It would give her the excuse to wear black and green.

"Do you really want to wear a tux?" the hero inquired, just to be sure.

"It would drive my mom nuts. Hell, my dad too. Do you mind if I wear a tux?" the pale woman asked curiously.

"Hey, if that's how you're comfortable." Kim shrugged. They were getting married. Shego could show up stark naked and she would not care as long as they went through with the whole ceremony. Although she doubted that they would make it through the ceremony if her beloved showed up nude.

"If I wear a tux, I could get a green vest to go with it. At least I'll be wearing my favorite colors and everything."

"Okay, so we've got that down. We're going to be on a beach. I'll be in a white dress and you'll be in a tux. Where's this beach going to be located?" Kim asked.

"I don't know. I guess we'd have to go somewhere where this sort of thing is legal and everything," Shego pointed out.

"Oh, yeah," Kim said.

The slender adventurer had forgotten that there were many places that would not marry them. In her mind, they were finally a regular couple and she thought that they could do whatever a regular couple could do. But, nope, they were not quite there yet and they had done all that they could about their relationship. So, they were probably as "regular" as they were going to get.

"How about we go to a tropical location?" the green-skinned woman suggested.

"Okay, at least the beach'll be nice," Kim agreed with a nod.

"Yeah."

"Hey, I have a really important question," the younger woman just realized.

Shego was suspicious of that. Whenever Kim just suddenly made proclamations, it tended to lead to places that had nothing to do with what they were discussing. Those places usually involved kinky things or food; sometimes it was those things combined.

"What about the honeymoon?" the olive-eyed scientist inquired as if that was the most important thing about the whole wedding.

"I know what I want to do for that," Shego admitted. She had thought long and hard on that one even before she proposed.

"Yeah?" Kim appeared incredulous to that news and it was because Shego did not know what she wanted to do about their wedding, but already knew what she desired to do for their honeymoon. "Oh, what are we going to do on our honeymoon? What's it going to involve? I know, strawberries, whipped cream, chocolate and maple syrup…Could you make pancakes right now?" the redhead requested. She had made herself hungry that quickly.

Shego sighed. "I should've seen that coming," she remarked. She supposed that it could have been worse with the way Kim's mind worked.

"Is that a 'yes'?"

"Sure, I'll make some pancakes, but we have to keep talking about this one. We need to get this mapped out before my busybody mother sticks her pointed witch nose in our business," Shego replied.

Kim nodded to show that she was all for that idea, but Shego suspected that the redhead was mostly on board for the pancakes. They retreated to the kitchen where Shego started on the flapjacks and they continued on bouncing ideas around about the wedding. It would seem that Kim was not just along for the hotcakes, which Shego was thankful for.

--------------

Next time: anybody up for a madcap wedding?


	3. Reason Three: Protection

I don't own these characters or the original premise behind this saga.

A/N: meant to comment on the italic messages at the beginning of each chapter, but as you guys know, I sometimes forget to do important stuff. So, the italic comments are pretty much an expression of Kim and Shego's emotions or feelings.

Reason Three: Protection

_The safety of an embrace can be a scary thing. Feeling loved can be frightening, especially since it feels so good, so right. It doesn't make sense sometimes._

"Smiley, get your little ass back here!" Shego hollered as the now mischievous six-year-old ran off into the grand hotel that they were going to be staying at. He was such a gremlin, she thought.

"I'll get him," Kim replied and she dashed off after the hyper child.

Shego sighed and shook her head. She supposed that while Kim took care of their rambunctious son, she could go take care of checking in. She knew that Todd acted so wild with them because his biological parents did not allow him to do anything, be it off the wall or just something simple and mundane that he wanted to do. He was all too aware that once he got around her and Kim, he could cut loose and do almost anything that he wanted, as long as it was nothing too bad. Sometimes, he did not know what "too bad" was until one of them said something, though.

"Wow," Todd muttered as he entered the hotel. The place was huge and extremely fancy looking. He was actually used to such things when his biological parents took him some place, which was extremely rare, but he had seen great hotels before. He had never been able to really look around and explore like he was planning to do right now, though.

"Smiley, get back here!" Kim called.

Todd turned to see his Kimmie coming toward him and he thought it would nice to have some fun with her, especially since she was least likely to yell at him if it was a bad thing to do. He grinned and ran off, hoping to escape her, at least for a little while. He only had the weekend to play with them, after all. He wanted to live it up.

The little redheaded boy enjoyed his visits with Kim and Shego and he was very happy when they had come to pick him up last night. They had to argue with his birth parents, as was the habit that they had all worked themselves into. He hated hearing them argue, but he always knew that when it ended, he would be leaving with his loving parents, Kim and Shego. That had been the case last night too.

Every time that Shego and Kim went to pick up Todd, they got into an argument with his parents because his parents did not want him hanging around them. Shego always pointed out that if the asshole Grumblings, Todd's birth parents, did not allow him to leave with them then they always ran the risk of "the incident" occurring again. The incident referred to the first time Todd came back to Kim and Shego and the little lunatic had actually hitched a ride to Go City. A truck driver had given the child a ride into the city and then luckily had left him close enough to where he wanted to go that he was able to find his way. Making matters worse, they had moved when he did that stunt, so he had gone to the condo and the only reason he made it to Kim and Shego at all was because the landlady of their old apartment helped him find them. They were now always trying to avoid something like that happening again, but his biological parents always wanted to make things a struggle. They were such dicks, Shego always thought.

"Smiley, no! Get down from there!" Kim ordered in only a semi-forceful tone as she watched Todd climbing on top of a model in the hotel that was set up in the lobby of the place.

"Not even married yet, but they both already got the whole bad parents things already," Monique remarked as she and Felix entered the hotel to see Kim having a hard time with Todd, which they were used to. Whenever Todd was staying with them, Kim took him to hang out with her while Shego was at work and her friends were accustomed to him being around, acting up.

"Smiley, get down before you fall!" Kim called as he just climbed higher. He was already almost twenty feet off the ground.

"I can go higher, though!" the light green-eyed child called down to his Kimmie. Yes, Kimmie was his as far as he was concerned, but then again, Shego was his too. He would not trade them in for all the world, sun, moon, stars, and whatever else someone tried to offer him.

"You might fall!" Kim pointed out.

As soon as those words left her mouth, Todd grabbed a part of the model that broke off. He slipped and fell. Kim gasped as he plummeted and she dived to catch the boy. She made a good save, although she hurt her right side when she landed on it. Todd grinned sheepishly, more embarrassed at having fallen than anything else.

"Nice catch," a familiar voice said that caused Kim to look up.

"Uh, hi, Isabel," Kim said, now feeling rather sheepish herself. It would seem that her future mother-in-law had just witnessed the fact that she was not always the best parent when it came to Todd.

"Is this who I think it is?" Isabel inquired, looking at Todd. She had heard some things about Kim and Shego taking care of a little boy every so often and she guessed that she was looking at him.

Todd, still rather shy around new people, yelped because he was being stared at. He worked his way out of Kim's hold and then pulled her to stand up. Once she was standing firmly on her feet, he hid behind her. Isabel thought that was just too darling.

"What the hell are you three doing?" Shego asked as she stepped over to her fiancée, mother, and "son."

"I was just about to introduce Todd to Isabel," Kim answered.

"Fine, Mommy, meet Smiley. Smiley meet my mother. Now, can we all get out of the lobby?" Shego huffed.

"Mommy?" Todd echoed. He tugged on Kim's shirt to get her attention, which worked. "That's She-she's mommy?" he asked curiously while pointing to Isabel.

"Yeah, that's She-she's mommy," Kim confirmed.

It was Isabel's turn to mimic a parrot. "She-she?" she muttered in a bemused tone.

"That's what he calls Shego," Kim explained.

"So, are the rumors true?" Isabel asked rather curiously.

"Rumors?" Kim repeated. It seemed like everyone was having their "echo moments." She was wondering what rumors could possibly be going around about her, Shego, and Todd.

"That you two had a little boy," Isabel answered with an amused smile.

"Mommy, don't even get started. Let's all just go check in," Shego insisted. She did not want things to get annoying when she was already on edge. The idea of getting married in the morning had every nerve in her body twitching. It was not that she did not want to do it, but that it just seemed like such a big deal. It did not help matters that she knew that her mother was going to make it seem like an even bigger deal.

"She's already in a mood," the middle-aged martial artist said to Kim, teasing Shego.

"She's been in a mood all week," Kim replied with a bit of a shrug to show that she was used to it already.

"I am standing right here," the green-skinned female pointed out in a huff.

Shego had been in a mood all week. There was so much crap to deal with for everything and it was culminated when she had to deal with Todd's stupid parents yesterday. His biological parents always acted like they were going to take the kid and never come back. Sure, it was tempting, but if they had not done it before, they certainly were not going to start now. They just wanted their "son" present for their wedding and his parents wanted to be morons about it.

Her mood had not been improved on the ride to the hotel. Todd had been hyper on the plane, which she blamed on Kim for giving him a bunch of candy early in the morning; their flight had been early. Kim claimed that she had not given the child anything. It was a good thing that they had packed everything that the kid would need before having picked him up or Shego would have just been irked about that too and they might have missed their flight, which would have caused the super-powered woman to have a nuclear meltdown…before causing one herself.

"Shego, you can go check us in and I'll keep an eye on Smiles," Kim offered, hoping that it would ease just some of the tension that her lover was feeling.

"Smiley, you better be good or you're spending the weekend locked in the room," Shego informed the boy.

"I'll be good," Todd promised with a grin, knowing that was an empty threat at best coming from his She-she.

"This is definitely your son," Shego said to Kim, who only grinned proudly. The green-skinned woman shook her head and strolled off to check them in.

"Son, huh? Then I guess that makes me a grandma," Isabel commented with a smile. She thought it was cute that Kim and Todd actually looked alike when they grinned.

"Sort of," Kim agreed. It seemed logical for Isabel to consider herself Todd's grandmother since she and Shego really considered the boy to be their son.

"Grandma?" Todd muttered to himself. He already had a pair of grandmothers and he did not like either of them very much. One did not know who he was most of the time and the other did not care about him. Both of those grandmothers were very mean to him when they did pay attention to him. But, he figured that he might be able to give his She-she's mother a go at being his grandmother if she wanted that. After all, She-she and Kimmie were doing a great job at being parents as far as he was concerned, so maybe their parents would do the same as grandparents.

Before Isabel could make herself familiar with the little boy, they were turned around by a scream. It sounded like someone had just run into a celebrity; they made that guess because of the swank hotel that they were in. And then Yori ran over. Kim decided that their guess was right on; Yori had definitely run into a celebrity.

Yori was so excited that she was yelling in Japanese as she stood before Isabel. Kim laughed a bit while Isabel looked absolutely puzzled. She ran into people that were fans of hers every now and then, but not often. The ones that she ran into did get rather excited, though. She just smiled while Yori continued bugging out in Japanese. It did not help matters that Yori was speaking to fast for anyone to understand her in any language.

"I'm pretty sure when she's done squealing like a drooling fan-girl, she's going to want your autograph," Kim informed Isabel.

"Do you know her?" Isabel asked curiously.

"Good friend of mine. Trained as a ninja," Kim answered.

"Oh, is she from the Yamanuchi school?" the middle-aged female asked. If that was the case, it would explain some of Yori's behavior to her. She occasionally went to that school and took on their students to remain in top form.

"Yes, I am!" Yori finally remembered that she could speak English and go at a speed where enough for the rest of the world could get what she was saying. But, after that one answer, she could not remember enough English to continue on because she was so overwhelmed. She could not believe that she was meeting someone who was a legend at her school.

"Yori, calm down," Kim said. "Take a deep breath," the redhead instructed her friend. Yori did as she was told. "Okay, good," Kim said. "Now, release it slowly," she told the ninja and Yori again did as she was told.

"Okay, I'm better now," the ebony-haired ninja said with a sigh. "Um…Gooding-sama….would you please…um…" she could not even stammer through her request.

"Autograph?" Isabel guessed and Yori nodded vigorously.

Kim had a pen and paper already prepared because she knew how Yori was going to react when she first met Isabel. Yori had warned her, after all. The hero handed over the pen and paper and Isabel dished out her autograph with no problem. She added a little something extra to the page.

"Since you're a good friend of Kimmie's, feel free to call me anytime you like," Isabel told Yori and pointed to her number at the bottom of the paper.

"Call you?" Yori squeaked and then she actually fainted.

"Babe!" Ron shouted when he saw his wife laid out on the floor. Kim picked Yori up while Ron dashed over. "What happened?" the blonde asked.

"Well, let's just say, what would happen if you met the guy that started Bueno Nacho and he gave you his personal number to call him whenever you wanted?" Kim answered.

"Did she meet him? Aw, man! I miss out on everything!" Ron griped.

"No, she didn't meet him. But, you know how you would feel if you met him. Well, she just met the person equal to him in her world," Kim explained.

"K.P, there is no one equal to the holiest of holies, the inventor of Bueno Nacho," the blonde chastised his best friend for even thinking such a thing that someone could compare to the man that made the greatest food on the planet.

Kim decided not to even bother with that one. Yori regained consciousness after a minute or so of being knocked out. She immediately checked her hand to make sure that she still had her autograph before anything else and she was still clutching the paper as if it was the cure for cancer. And then she noticed that her husband was holding her.

"Ron-kun, look!" Yori said, losing her usual cool. She showed him her autograph, but he failed to see the big deal.

"Um…that's nice," he said for lack of a better thing.

Todd watched the whole thing unfold quietly with a dumbfounded look ok his face. He did not know what just happened. Was his She-she's mommy someone famous? He would guess so from the way that Miss Yori acted; yeah, he called Yori "miss" most of the time and everyone thought it was so adorable. He was not at all accustomed to seeing Yori act the way she did; he was more used to Ron being all wild and loud.

Todd had hung out with Kim and her friends on a few occasions, so he knew them all rather well. He was comfortable with them to the point where Kim or Shego could leave him with them for a little while and he would not freak out. After a few hours though, he would start asking questions like "when's She-she coming to get me?" or "when's my Kimmie coming back?" or he would request that they call one of them every couple of minutes until one of them came to pick him up.

"So, Kimmie, has your family arrived yet?" Isabel asked.

"No, I think the flight from Middleton left later than the one from Go City. Where's the rest of your family?" Kim inquired curiously.

"They'll be here," Isabel simply replied.

The Gooding clan was all over the country, so they all had to fly out from somewhere else. The twins were supposed to fly out from Go City, but they ended going to California at the last minute, so now they were flying out from there. Jason had been in Washington, so he had caught a flight out of Maryland. Mego was flying out of New York and Hego was from Go City, but he had caught a different flight on another airline from his sister and her fiancée. They all knew that they had better show up too because when Isabel used the words "or else I will make your life a living Hell for all eternity," she tended to mean them.

"So, I guess we can all get together for dinner before the big day tomorrow," Isabel commented.

"Try telling Shego that and I'm sure she'll run, screaming into the night," Kim remarked with a laugh.

"Funny that she would be the nervous one. You're totally calm about this whole thing," the middle-aged martial artist noted.

"Why shouldn't I be? I like stepping into the unknown, especially if freefalling has something to do with it," Kim said with a big grin.

Isabel shook her head and laughed a bit herself. She decided to go check in with the rest of the few guests that had arrived, which were mostly Kim's friends and they had arrived because they were all on the same flight. Betty and Dahntay were also there because they had come on the same flight.

"Betty," Isabel said with a fond smile when she saw the one-eyed female.

"Hey, Isabel," Betty replied and she went give the older woman a hug.

"I'm going to chalk this whole thing up to the great example that you've been setting for my little firefly," Isabel remarked as they released each other.

"No, don't try to give me credit for her marrying a little brat," Betty riposted.

Isabel smiled a bit. "Aw, but she's such a sweet brat. I'm going to guess that you've met their little son."

"I have. He's a creepy kid too. Worked his way into the right family," Betty commented with a teasing half-smile.

Isabel could not help laughing a little. She then turned her attention to Dahntay. She had met him before, at Betty's wedding a few months back. She thought he was a good guy. Sometimes, he poured on the charm a little too much, but other than that, he was very nice man.

"Good to see you again, Dahntay," Isabel said and they shook hands.

"It's a pleasure to see you again," he commented and leaned down to kiss her hand. See, he poured on the charm just a little too much sometimes. "Hopefully, this wedding won't be as eventful as the last I saw you at."

Isabel only smiled; it was an amused expression. The last wedding he had seen her at would have been his own. That had been a great adventure, but rather inappropriate for a wedding. Betty had been kind enough to invite her mother to the wedding; hey, the woman might have been quite the bitch, but she was still her mother. So, Eleanor had shown up and made Betty's life hell as usual. Isabel and Shego had decided to team up for once and do some good for Betty on what was supposed to be the happiest day of her life. Eleanor had not known what hit her, literally.

Yes, Shego and Isabel double-teamed Eleanor on her daughter's wedding day. It started out as a little verbal match, but then Eleanor had to keep going and it turned into a serious fight. After all of that, the only way to keep Eleanor under control during the rest of the wedding was to make sure that Isabel and Shego were around. They went so far as to sandwich her when the ceremony was going on. They even had given her a threatening look, as if daring her to start something while she was in the middle of them. She had wisely sat quietly through the ceremony.

Dahntay had been rather understanding of Eleanor's behavior at his wedding, mostly because he could already tell that Betty was thoroughly embarrassed and completely mortified by her mother. He had no desire to add to the stress she was already going through. He did hope that he did not have to see her mother again anytime soon, though.

"So, how do you think this ceremony is going to go?" Dahntay asked Isabel.

"I'm sure it'll be something to remember," Isabel remarked.

--------------

"Smiley, don't just on the bed with your shoes on," Shego sighed. What were they going to do with him, really?

The redheaded boy did as he usually did when admonished by his "She-she," he smiled sheepishly and stopped doing what he was doing, namely jumping on the bed with his shoes on. The second that they stepped into the room, he saw the bed first and made a beeline right for it because it looked bouncy. He needed to find out for himself and so, he had leaped onto the bed and got in a few good jumps before Shego noticed.

"Princess, did you give the gremlin sugar while I wasn't looking?" Shego inquired because she wanted to know what his deal was. He was way more hyper than usual and that was saying something for their little boy.

"No, I didn't give him anything. I think he's just excited to be here," Kim answered as she shut the door since she was the last one in the room.

"Look, a terrace! Can I open the door?" Todd asked as he rushed to the glass doors at the back of the room. He pressed his face into the glass for no real reason other than he was young and overexcited.

"Wait for one of us," Shego said. The last thing they needed was for him to be way too excited and just leap off the balcony.

Todd did as he was ordered and waited for them. Kim picked him up while Shego opened the door. They all went out on the balcony and looked out at the view. Their room looked right out onto the beach and they were high up enough to see a great deal of the sapphire blue water, the waves gently caressing the sparkling sand.

"Kimmie, is that where you and She-she are going to get married?" Todd asked while pointing down to the beach.

"It's close enough," Kim answered.

They were not getting married on a section of beach where a bunch of people were going to be like the view they were looking at. It was a closed off part of the beach that the hotel had just to for such occasions. Kim had to give it to Shego to have found such a place, even though the pale woman had not done it on her own. Shego had gotten a little help from her mother in find a location because Isabel was so well-traveled, but the green-skinned woman had made sure to make it clear that looking for a location was not an invitation for the older woman to start acting like she was running things. Isabel had surprisingly only offered up the assistance that was requested of her and left the rest to her daughter. She had faith that Shego would do something breathtaking for Kim.

"Do I getta do something at the wedding?" Todd asked curiously, looking back and forth between his two guardians.

"Aside for be a gremlin? What do you want to, Smiley?" Shego inquired.

"I dunno. I jus' wanna help," he explained.

"You'll help a lot if you're on your best behavior tomorrow, okay?" Kim informed him.

"Okay, I'll be extra good," he promised with that grin that Shego believed spelled doom. And it was her luck that she had two people in her life that gave her that same silly expression.

"Oh, Shego, your mother suggested we all get together and have a big dinner before the wedding tomorrow, are you okay with that?" Kim asked.

Shego frowned. Of course that woman would suggest such a thing. It would seem that she did not appear stressed enough, now her mother wanted her to sit through dinner with their family and Kim's family. Well, it was not like she could decline. Her mother would then be in her face and it would not look good to Kim's parents, who already did not like her very much. Besides, someone was going to have to watch what Kim and Todd ate for dinner, although she was pretty sure that Kim was just going to have pasta until her stomach exploded.

"I guess I'm okay with it," Shego muttered.

"It'll be fine. Relax," Kim said with a soft smile. She would have given Shego a reassuring embrace, but she was holding their son.

"I will…later," the emerald-eyed female replied.

Kim was about to say something, but Todd started leaning forward, which got her full attention since he was in her arms. He grabbed the guardrail, which worried her and she pulled him back. He pouted.

"I wanted to see how far down it is," the little boy explained his movements.

"Yeah, when you're big enough to see over the guardrail on your own, you can see how far it is," Kim informed him.

"Let's go back inside," Shego suggested.

Kim nodded and they walked back into the room. She put Todd down and let him walk around the rather large hotel room. He went through all of the drawers in the dressers and whatever else he could get his hands on, which did not bother his guardians.

Kim and Shego went to hang up some things in the closet. Todd ran into the closet while they were hanging things up. It was a walk-in closet.

"Wow, it's like 'nother room in here!" he declared.

"Are you sure you didn't give him anything? Any sugar at all?" Shego asked Kim.

"I'm sure. I told you, he's just excited," Kim replied and then she bent down to talk to Todd face to face. "Look, Smiles, you have to tone it down just a bit. Your She-she is very stressed right now, okay?" she explained.

"Why?" Todd asked with a perplexed expression, turning his attention to the pale woman.

"I don't know. I just am," Shego replied in a bit of a huffy tone. She felt like she should be feeling better now that everything was set up and all she had to do was show up tomorrow, but she was not feeling any less tense about everything.

Todd was a bit taken back by her tone with him. He whimpered, thinking that she was upset with him. He hid behind Kim, planning to stay there until the heat was off. Shego recognized the tactic and sighed. She bent down to the boy.

"Smiles, it's okay. I didn't mean to sound mad at you," Shego said in a surprisingly gentle voice.

"Sorry I make you stressed," he muttered, eyeing the floor with shame and sorrow in his jade-colored eyes.

"It's not you, Smiley. It's just…" Shego glanced at Kim, who looked away. Shego inched over to the boy and whispered to him. "It's scary getting married," she informed him. She had not wanted to admit that out loud, but she could not let Todd think that her mood was because of him.

Todd looked shocked. His She-she was scared? He did not think that it was possible because his She-she was so tough and super-strong. Nothing was supposed to scare his She-she, not even the boogeyman. Besides, he thought that getting married was supposed to be a happy time. His Kimmie certainly seemed happy enough. Why would She-she do something that she was scared of?

"She-she," Todd said.

"I think I'll go get some soda," Kim announced out of the blue and she stood up to leave.

The hero knew that she was doing the right thing because Shego did not stop her. She exited the closet and left the room. Shego and Todd left the closet too and went to sit on a bed. She had to help him up a bit.

"She-she, how come you're scared to marry Kimmie? Why do something that you're scared of?" Todd asked curiously.

"You know, booger, sometimes you're just scared of stuff that you really want. You want it so badly that it kind of worries you," Shego answered.

"I don't get it. How can you want something scary?" he inquired.

"Okay, remember when you first met Kimmie and you followed her home?" she asked and he nodded. "You were scared, weren't you?" she continued and he nodded again to confirm that. "But, you wanted to go with Kimmie, right?" she pointed out and he nodded.

"That was scary, but it worked good, so you shouldn't be scared, She-she. Kimmie likes you a lot. She's not gonna do nothing to you," he seemed to promise.

Shego smiled. "I know she's not. I'm just really nervous about it, like you were when you followed her home. I think that once I get passed the moment it happens, I should be all right."

"Okay. Hey, She-she, can I ask one more question?"

"Of course."

"Is your mommy my grandma?" he asked curiously. He really did consider himself Kim and Shego's son and he knew that they thought of him as the same, so he wondered if that made their parents his grandparents.

"If you want her to be, she'll be more than happy. She always wanted grandkids."

"Is she nice like you?" he inquired.

"Nice like me?" Shego echoed as if she did not understand the question and then she laughed. "Yeah, she's nice just like me."

"So, should I call her 'grandma'?"

"I'm sure she's get a kick out of it. You can do it at dinner tonight," the pale woman told him.

Shego rubbed the top of Todd's head, noting that his hair was getting longer than he liked it. She made a mental note to take him for a haircut tomorrow, either before or after the ceremony. And then Kim came back in; she had sodas.

The redhead looked at Shego to make sure it was all right for her to come back into the room. Shego nodded, so Kim walked further into the room and she put the sodas down on the nightstand. Todd quickly grabbed one and cracked it before someone told him that he could not have any soda.

"You okay?" Kim asked Shego, who nodded.

Shego was all right, even though she was scared too. She wanted to marry Kim and she knew that. She was just anxious because of the gravity of the situation. To prove that she was all right, she walked over to Kim and placed a tender kiss on her lips. They embraced until Todd started coughing, trying gulp down the can of soda too fast.

"Smiles, you okay?" they asked simultaneously while falling to his side and helping him out. He nodded and smiled sheepishly; he had not meant to break up their moment.

--------------

Next time: definitely dinner and a show.


	4. Reason Four: Endurance

I don't own these characters or the original premise behind this saga.

Reason Four: Endurance

_Standing by your side, we're strong as one. Pushing each other along and always being there to hold each other up. We'll make it through everything in such a state._

"Princess, where's Smiley? We need to get him ready for dinner," Shego pointed out as she stepped out of the bathroom. She was dressed in a semi-formal manner, wearing black knee length skirt and a grass green, v-neck shirt.

"Good question," Kim replied. She was already dressed for dinner, which was why Shego had changed clothes. The younger female was wearing a white and red shirt along with some red pants.

"What do you mean 'good question?' You were supposed to watch him," Shego stated. How the hell could Kim lose their son in a freaking hotel room?!

"I was watching him," the redhead replied as if it was not a big deal that their little boy was nowhere to be found.

"Then why don't you know where he is?" Shego demanded to know.

"Calm down. He was just running around here," Kim answered and she started looking for him.

The slender hero had not noticed that a couple of minutes ago Todd's noise had died down. She peeked into the closet since he had been so fascinated with the large space, but he was not in there. She was not sure where else to check after that, but she suddenly saw a lump by the bed.

Kim moved over to the bed and pushed the covers out of the way. Todd was lying under there on the floor, propped up against the bed, sleeping soundly. Kim smiled to herself as she dragged him from under there and picked him up. She laid him down on the bed.

"Ta-da!" Kim said as if she had done something special by locating the boy under the bed.

"Don't be smart," the moss-hued officer warned her lover with a stern look.

Kim only shrugged and then she turned her attention completely to Shego. Her mouth dropped open at the sight; the way that the clothing hugged her fiancée's voluptuous form was enough to cause her eyes to pop out of her skull while her jaw practically hit the floor. Shego secretly liked the reaction, but she rolled her eyes to act like her girl's behavior annoyed her.

"Don't even think about it," the pale woman ordered her fiancée, knowing filthy impulses were running through Kim's mind at the moment.

"I'm not thinking about it," the slim adventurer lied. She was thinking about it because that was about all she could do with Todd in the room. She was probably going to be thinking about it for the rest of the night now.

"Keep not thinking about it. Get Smiley's clothes and I'll wake him up, so he can get dressed," Shego said.

The redhead nodded and she went to pull out some clothes for Todd. Shego went to the boy and gently shook him to wake him up. He moaned softly and turned onto his left side, but he did not wake up. She was not deterred and shook him some more. He groaned as if he was upset with what she was doing and he turned so that his back was facing Shego. She was slightly offended by that.

"Hey, booger, don't think I'm not below throwing you off this bed to wake you," Shego threatened the sleeping child, hoping that would get him to wake up.

"Don't be mean to him in his sleep," Kim scolded her lover as she came back over to the pair.

"He needs to wake up. What do you have for him?"

"This." Kim held up some black slacks and regular dark green shirt. Shego brought the boy's clothes for the most part obviously.

"Okay, well, let's go back to trying to wake him up," the older woman said.

Kim nodded and Shego went back to trying to wake up the boy that was so hyperactive less than twenty minutes ago. Todd was out like a light now. He was not waking up and despite her threats to hurt him to wake him up, Shego only shook him and she did not even do that too wildly.

"Let's just put the clothes on him and getting going," the olive-eyed hero suggested.

Shego agreed with that and pulled off Todd's tee-shirt. Kim put the new shirt on him, which caused him to whimper some, but he did not wake up. Kim then removed his pants and put on his slacks while Shego went to get a brush to make his hair presentable.

The pale woman brushed Todd's hair back; he was still sleeping. She then went and got a washcloth to wipe his face. When she cleaned his face, she got a reaction from him. He whined and tried to turn away, but Shego would not let him. He cried out for Kimmie, as if he knew that it was Shego washing his face, and put his hands out for her to pick him up, which she did.

"Don't pick him up just because he wants that," the irritable woman scolded her girl.

"I was going to have to pick him up anyway since he's not waking up," Kim pointed out.

"Yeah, but don't do it because he wants it. I've already got one spoiled brat. I don't want to worry about another one," the emerald-eyed female remarked.

"Ah, you know you love spoiled brats."

"Like hell I do."

Kim only smiled and used the playful argument as an excuse to kiss Shego. She had to do it because the raven-haired woman had on lip gloss and her lips just looked too inviting to Kim. Shego knew that the redhead would be coming in for a kiss the first chance she got, which was why she had put the lip gloss on in the first place.

Shego got a huge kick out of being wanted so badly by Kim. It felt nice to be wanted and needed. And that was why she was marrying the crazy hero, she reminded herself. So, there really was no reason to be nervous about it.

"All right, all right, you little perv," Shego said to tease Kim and the pale woman pulled away from the sweet embrace. "Let's go down to dinner and get this thing over with," the older woman stated with a sigh.

The younger woman nodded and they exited the room with Todd still sleeping in Kim's arms. They went down to the hotel restaurant and were taken to a back room, which was where their families were to mix and mingle. Most of their guests were already there and no one was getting yelled at; it was like a miracle.

"Kimmie, I'm so happy for you!" Missus Possible said and she seemed to come out of nowhere to hug her daughter.

"Thanks, Mom," Kim replied with a bit of a smile. She was a little surprised at how accepting and happy her parents were for her considering how hard it was for them to accept that she wanted to be with Shego. They had to concede that Shego made their daughter happy and she did seem to take good care of Kim, despite the way that things had started out for the couple.

"You'd better take good care of my daughter," Ann said to Shego while turning her attention to the pale woman.

Shego waved the neurosurgeon off since that was more a playful threat than anything else. After all, she had been taking care of Kim since she found the nutty hero all of those years ago. She did not need to be told or threatened to continue what she was doing and Ann knew that now.

"Kimmie-cub, who's this you got here?" James asked as he walked over. He stood behind his wife and was referring to Todd, who was still asleep.

"Oh, Mom, Dad, this is Smiley. He's sort of our kid," Kim answered.

"Sort of?" her parents echoed in perplexed tones. How was the boy "sort of" their kid?

"He's pretty much our son on weekends and holidays," Shego remarked, but she was telling the truth. Whenever Todd did not have school, he was all theirs and it suited them all just fine, although they would have liked to have him all the time. They were not terribly comfortable with leaving Todd with his biological parents considering the fact that those people did not seem to care much, if anything at all, about the boy.

"How long has this been going on?" Ann asked curiously.

"About a year," Kim replied.

"And you never told us?" James inquired incredulously. Their daughter had been taking care of a little boy that she considered her son and she had not said anything about it? It was like she was excluding them in his opinion.

"Well, he never really came up in a conversation," the petite hero replied with a sheepish shrug. It was clear from the look on her face that she was embarrassed at never telling her parents about Todd, but he never really did come up in a conversation. Her parents were always interested in knowing what she was doing at work or in school or if Shego was taking care of her. They did not leave much room to open other discussions.

"Let's grab a seat," Shego suggested. She did not want Kim to feel down about anything for the weekend, so if the Possibles were going to make Kim feel guilty about not telling them about Todd, she was going to get Kim away from them.

The pale woman led Kim away from the doctors and went to find an open pair of chairs. She noticed her mother at the back of the room motioning to them with her hand. She sighed, but decided to see what the annoying woman wanted.

"Here, I had a table waiting just for the guests of honor," Isabel explained as the couple drew closer to her.

Shego and Kim turned their attention to the table that was waiting for them. It sort of put them at the head of the room, where there were tables spread out for everyone to find a place to sit; with luck, they would sit next to someone they could stand, so there would not have to be any incidents. Little did they know, but Isabel had already taken precautions to make sure everyone behaved themselves. Kim put Todd down in a chair, which seemed to wake him up; it was either that or the smell of food finally hit his nose. Kim and Shego then sat down at the table and looked around to see what was going on in the room.

Isabel was sharing a table with Jason and Hego, hoping to make sure that they behaved. They had put up more of a fight than she liked about coming to Shego's wedding just because she was getting married to a female. Well, Isabel would be damned if they were going to miss her little firefly's union to the person that made her happiest and that she loved with all of her heart. She had also warned them to be on their best behavior "or else." Everyone in the Gooding family detested it when Isabel said "or else" because they did not know what she had planned, but they did know that they were going to hate it.

Mego was at the table with his parents and older brother. He was a bit opposed to coming to the wedding too. He did not feel like taking time out of his life because Shego was getting married. He doubted that Shego would drop her life to come to his wedding if he was getting married. He also doubted that Isabel would make such a big deal about things if he was getting married, so he was a little huffy about having to be there.

The Wegos were sitting at a table with the Possible twins. They were happy that their hot sisters were getting married. It did not mean that they were not going to continue behaving like lecherous monkeys when it came to the couple, but they were happy for them.

The pair of twins was also happy to be on an island paradise for the weekend. They all figured that they could give their sisters a break for a moment or so and go hit on some single women. Sure, those women probably would not be as hot as Kim was the Wegos or Shego was the tweebs, but they would still be attractive, bikini-clad babes. The guys were practically drooling just thinking about it.

Betty and Dahntay were seated at a table alone, but they were aware that the two empty seats at the table were going to be filled soon enough. They were chatting amongst themselves while they had the chance, especially since Betty assured Dahntay that when their tablemates showed up, things were going to get annoying. He wondered what there was about Betty's or Shego's families that were not annoying from the way the two made both seem.

Ron, Yori, Monique, and Felix were all sharing a table. They were going on about how great it was that Kim was finally getting married. They were truly happy for their friend. It was about time that she found someone for her and that someone accepted her for who she was. They could not wait to see how the ceremony was going to be.

James and Ann were seated at a table with James' mother, who actually did not want to be there. Kim's grandmother was totally against the idea of same sex marriages and made that clear when James told her about Kim getting married. He had to force her to come because they knew that it would mean a lot to Kim.

Ann could not even force her parents to make the trip. They were also against same sex marriage and had refused to even consider coming to the wedding. Ann tried her best to change their minds, but after a while, they even stopped taking her calls. She could take a hint and decided to not even try after a while. If they wanted to miss out on their only granddaughter's wedding, then that was on them.

Everyone seemed to be having a good time, Shego noted. And then her attention was drawn to the front of the room as more people entered. She frowned as her cousin came into the room. Damn her mother, Shego silently cursed because she knew that Isabel had invited her irksome cousin. And then came a most shocking guest behind her cousin.

"Auntie Victoria?" Shego muttered in disbelief.

Behind Lynn was her mother, Victoria. Victoria was Isabel's baby sister. She was blonde and blue-eyed like Lynn. She was a little taller than her daughter with longer hair; her blonde tresses went down her back. It was amazing how much two sisters could look so different, but they were actually rather similar and they got along better than best friends much of the time.

"Where's little Izzie and this girl getting stuck with her forever and a day?" Victoria remarked rather loudly. Victoria would be considered the loud sister.

"Oh, great," Shego mumbled. It would seem that the day was going to get much worse before it got better.

"She's over there, Aunt Vickie!" the Wegos just sold their sister out and pointed to her, along with ten other clones of themselves to make sure that their aunt did not miss their big sister.

"Thanks, Wally," Victoria said with a grateful smile and she marched right back to Shego.

"Damn it," Shego said and she looked around for an emergency exit, but she had been strategically placed in the center of the room, so she would not be able to get to an exit quick enough. Oh, great, she thought sarcastically. Damn her mother! It was all Isabel's fault as far as Shego was concerned.

"Give us a hug, little Izzie!" Victoria said with a huge smile and she grabbed her moss-hued niece into a tight embrace.

"Damn it, Auntie let me go!" Shego ordered while trying to force her way out of her aunt's grip without hurting the older woman.

"I'm so proud of you, little Izzie!"

"And stop calling me that!" Shego snarled. Every single nickname her family had for her got on her nerves, but "little Izzie" had to be the worst one ever. It was actually something that her mother could understand because she used to have to put up with that horrid name when she was younger.

"All right, Cassandra," Victoria agreed since she knew the name bothered her niece.

"Don't call me that either," Shego ordered while finally getting away from her aunt.

"Fine, Sandy," Victoria said.

"You're just going to go through the list, huh?" Shego inquired with an irked expression. She had more nicknames than anyone needed in her opinion because there could be so many plays on the name "Cassandra."

"It was my plan, but now that you've figured it out, it won't be as much fun. So, introduce me to your future bride. I hear she's adorable and you're totally unworthy of her," Victoria commented with a delighted expression on her face, showing that she was genuinely interested in meeting her niece's fiancée.

Shego frowned; oh, she hated her family so much. She turned her attention to Kim, who was looking too amused. Shego frowned even deeper, especially when she noticed that Todd was practically laughing at her. How irksome.

"Auntie, meet Kim Possible. Kimmie, meet my aunt Victoria," Shego begrudgingly introduced the two.

"Oh, you are adorable," Victoria said as Kim stood up to shake her hand.

"Um…thank you," Kim replied with a polite smile. She was not sure what else to say when a grown woman told her that she was adorable.

"You don't let my little niece get you down. Keep her in line," Victoria ordered the redhead in good-natured tone and added a wink just to further antagonize her niece.

"Like hell she will," Shego stated rather indignantly. She was the one that kept everyone in line.

"Was anyone talking to you, Cassie?" Victoria inquired and that made the green-skinned female turn her head to show that she was offended by the use of that name.

"No way! You're marrying this kid?" Lynn shouted when she caught sight of Kim. She could not believe what she was seeing if that was the case.

Shego just wanted to bang her head against a wall. Or better still, bang Lynn's head against the wall to not have to hear the rant that she was about to go into. Lynn did start a tirade about how Shego should not marry such a twerp while her mother decided to make her way across the room and went to talk with her big sister.

"Thanks for calling me for this, Isabel," Victoria said as she and Isabel embraced.

"I knew you'd want to be there for your only niece's wedding, just like I would if your little kitten got married," Isabel replied.

"Kim is adorable, just like you said."

"Isn't she just a darling thing? Oh, did they introduce you to their little son?" Isabel asked with a huge smile gracing her elegant features.

"Son?" Victoria echoed in a puzzled tone. She had not even noticed the child sitting next to Kim because she had been so hyped about meeting Kim.

"Yes, the little boy sitting with them. He's too cute too. They didn't introduce you?" Isabel asked in disbelief.

"No. I want to meet him. How'd they get a son? Did they adopt already? Don't they know that marriage is supposed to come before kids?" Victoria joked.

Isabel laughed. It was funny for Victoria to say such a thing because she did not even know who the father of her only child was. It never bothered her, although she did get pissed when the three fellows that she had been sleeping with back then all swore that the baby was not theirs. But, Victoria was easy going about relationships and just dismissed all of those guys and effortlessly found three new boyfriends; none of them knew about the others of course. Isabel did not judge her sister over such things and just always cautioned the blonde to look out for herself because she could be setting herself up for something terrible.

"You're one to talk," Jason grumbled, speaking to Victoria. He used to openly call the blonde woman a harlot until he learned that Isabel was very much against someone saying such hurtful things to her baby sister.

"Oh, Jason, didn't see you there. I can't believe Izzie is still putting up with you. I mean, she's already got out of you the only thing you're good for," Victoria remarked and she was referring to their offspring.

"Vicky, be nice," Isabel lightly chastised her sister. She understood that Jason could be a bit of a pill sometimes, but he was her husband and she had to defend him from her sharp-tongued sister because she would not allow him to defend himself.

"It's not in my nature," Victoria replied with a smirk.

"Let me introduce you to Kimmie's parents," Isabel commented.

Victoria agreed with that. On the way, she greeted the Wegos with kisses on their cheeks. They grinned and introduced her to pretty much their best friends for the moment, the Possible twins. After that, Victoria had to go greet Betty when she spotted her and she was introduced to Betty's husband. And then they finally made it over to the Possibles.

Isabel and Victoria struck up a conversation with James and Ann. Everyone seemed to mix and get along for while, except for Shego since she was trying to not throw Lynn out of a window on the far side of the room while the irksome female continued to denounce her lover as a useless twerp that only got in Shego's way. Lynn finally got away from Shego when waiters came in to take everyone's orders.

The super-powered female made sure to keep Kim's and Todd's ordering in check. Todd had a habit of wanting to try everything on a menu when they went out. Kim sometimes got into the habit of ordering as much pasta that was listed on a menu because she did not know what she wanted after she made sure to get a huge plate of spaghetti. Shego ordered grilled chicken while Todd had grilled fish and Kim had to have spaghetti of course.

"Can I have some of that?" the little boy asked his Kimmie when their food arrived and he caught sight of her pasta.

"No, eat your own food," Shego told the boy.

"But, I wanna try it, She-she," Todd protested.

"No, you always start mixing food and then it upsets your little stomach. You know that. Leave Kimmie to eat her dinner and you eat yours," the pale woman ordered.

"You're a meanie," Todd teased her. He even had the nerve to say it with a straight face.

"What?" Shego demanded to know what he just said as if she was offended by the childish insult. She was more playing along than anything else.

"Meanie!" Todd declared while pointing at her and causing everyone to turn their attention to what was going on.

"I know what you're trying to do, Smiley, and it's not going to work. Just eat your food and if you're still hungry when you're done, we'll get you some spaghetti," Shego said in an even tone.

Todd pouted; he had been hoping to shame her into giving in to his desires. He thought that if everyone was looking at her, she might try to appease him to avoid any embarrassment. It was a plan that never worked. It was just the only plan that he ever had.

"Don't worry, kiddo. After you finish your chicken, think about the desserts that'll come," Kim said to Todd and that did make his pout disappear.

The small boy did tear into his meal. It was clear that he thoroughly enjoyed the chicken and rice. He did have to be forced to eat the vegetables; he hated broccoli. Sometimes, he fed his broccoli to Kim when Shego was not looking, but it was hard to do it in a restaurant because Shego was often looking.

"This spaghetti is great," Kim commented as she ordered a second helping.

"Don't eat too much or you won't be able to fit in your dress tomorrow," the emerald-eyed officer teased.

"You think so?" the slim hero asked in a panic.

Shego laughed as an answer. Kim was actually worried that she might not be able to fit into the dress, so she did not touch her second helping of food. Todd merrily volunteered to finish that for his Kimmie. The olive-eyed scientist did not object and she pushed the plate over to him.

"Better be careful with overfeeding him," Monique remarked, turning her attention Kim when she noticed the plate of food move in Todd's direction.

"Yeah, he does have that habit," Felix added in, as if the boy's guardians were not aware of his "habit."

"Leave the little dude alone. It would take more than one plate of spaghetti to wreck Smiley's stomach. Right, Smiles?" Ron asked.

"Yup!" Todd grinned.

"Don't encourage him," Shego barked as Ron. He was always encouraging the kid to do something stupid in her opinion. The last thing they needed was Todd trying to prove that he could eat his weight in one meal because that never ended well.

"Go for it, little guy!" Ron cheered, just to be annoying. He liked getting on Shego's nerves when she was around because he thought that she was too uptight.

"Smiley, don't even try it," Shego ordered.

"Yeah, Smiley, don't listen to Ron," Kim pled. She was always the one that had to run him to the bathroom if he listened to Ron because she was the fast one.

Todd just smiled, but he did not get a chance to show that he could eat more than the spaghetti because his guardians ordered the waiters not to bring him anymore food. Before dessert was to be served, the group was given some time to mingle again. Todd hopped out of his chair and went to see if Kim's friends might share some of their food because he wanted to try more stuff.

"Didn't your She-she and Kimmie say no?" Monique pointed out to the boy when he came to request some of her meal.

"But, Mo!" Todd whined. She had a couple chicken fingers left over from her meal, which looked mighty good to him.

"Smiley!" Shego barked when she saw he was trying to con food out of people.

Todd yelped and ducked behind Felix's chair to get out of his She-she's vision range and hopefully avoid getting into any kind of trouble. Isabel noticed what the boy was going through and she thought that it was too cute, especially since Kim and Shego were acting like such responsible guardians. She got up from her seat and went over to Todd.

"Hey, didn't you promise them that you were going to be on your best behavior?" Isabel asked Todd. He jumped and yelped because he had not noticed her sneak up on him.

"Huh?" Todd asked while backing up from her. He began looking around for his Kimmie or She-she to hide behind. He ended up hitting someone as he backed away. He turned around to see who it was and saw that it was Kim. He put his hands up like a toddler would, silently begging to be picked up.

"Smiley, you shouldn't be scared. We went through this already," Kim pointed out without fulfilling his request of being picked up. She knew that Shego had been through everything with him about Isabel being his grandmother and she would like for him to see her as such.

"So, why do they call you Smiley?" Isabel asked Todd since she was fairly certain that he was not going to escape. She wanted the boy to be comfortable with her because she would love for him to think of her as his grandmother.

"It's short for Smilodon," he explained in a very small voice. It was the way that he spoke when he was meeting someone for the first time or if there were a lot of people around with his guardians. He also took a great interest in his shoes or the floor under such circumstances.

"Oh, smilodon, huh? So, you like saber-tooth cats?" Isabel guessed. Todd nodded. Isabel turned her attention to Kim. "Do you mind if I borrow him for a moment or two?" she asked the slender hero.

"Take him. Smiley, you be good for Isabel, okay?" Kim told him.

Todd whimpered, showing that he was not for that idea. Kim reminded him that Isabel was his grandmother since she was his She-she's mommy. Todd nodded to show that he understood and Isabel picked him up. The middle-aged woman smiled at him, hoping to make him calmer around her.

"I'm not going to hurt you or anything, okay?" Isabel promised the boy.

"I know," he muttered. He had faith in her to be as kind as his She-she was because his She-she had said that Isabel was nice like she was. It was just something inside of him that made him nervous around new people and it took him a while to adjust. He was actually still trying to adjust to Kim's friends and he had known them just as long as he had known his guardians.

"What's my mother doing with Smiley?" Shego asked Kim when the redhead went back to her side.

"Bonding," Kim answered.

Shego shrugged, but she did not have much time to worry about him because Betty came out of nowhere to tease her about marrying "the brat." Kim went to talk with her friends to not have to be called a brat to her face while Isabel was still with Todd. She took him over to the Possibles.

"Have you two met our grandson?" Isabel asked the couple. She was wearing a small smile. It would seem she truly did like the idea of being a grandmother, which helped set Todd at ease somewhat. He also liked being introduced as a grandson by her, but it was not showing on his face yet.

"Briefly," the doctors answered honestly. He was asleep when they found out about him, after all.

"Smiley, these are Kimmie's parents," Isabel informed him.

"Kimmie's parents?" the redheaded boy echoed in puzzled tone. He was sort of wowed because he never thought about his Kimmie and She-she having parents before.

"Yeah, Kimmie's parents. That's her mother, Ann, and her father, James," Isabel explained to the child. The doctors smiled and waved to the boy to show that they were non-threatening and friendly.

"Um…are they grandparents too?" Todd asked curiously.

"Are they your grandparents too?" Isabel inquired to be clear on what the boy meant. She hoped that was what he meant because that would mean that he was including her as his grandmother, which just tickled her. She had wanted grandchildren since Hego grew up, but she had never been certain if it was going to happen considering the way her children acted.

"Are they?" he asked. Isabel turned to the doctors to find out if they were.

"Of course," Ann answered since they had been told that Todd was "sort of" Kim's son. They did notice from the dinner that Kim and Shego were taking care of the boy as if he was theirs. Shego and Kim had also brought the boy experience their wedding with them. He obviously meant something to them.

Todd smiled. He was actually happy to be accepted by his Kimmie's parents and his She-she's parents. It made him feel more like he was their son, not just some kid that spent his weekends with them. He still was not very comfortable around them, but Isabel was going to make sure that changed because she was keeping him for the rest of the night whether he liked it or not. He did not find it in him to refer to them as anything beyond "Kimmie's Mom and Dad" and "She-she's Mommy," though, which was a little disappointing, but only made Isabel try harder.

Shego spent the night ducking away from her irksome aunt, who was just looking to bother her about getting married to such "an adorable goody-goody." When she was getting away from Victoria, she tended to run into Lynn and that was worse. So, she ended up just resigning herself to the fate of her aunt, which turned out to be a good idea. Only a few minutes after she decided to stick around her aunt, Victoria began cursing out Jason because he had come out his face to her, asking her about the number men in her life currently, his tone implying that what he thought of her. It was like a show for Shego once her aunt started in on someone else, especially her father.

Shego liked her aunt, even though the woman was annoying. Her aunt would tell her father off no matter what. All he had to do was something decidedly stupid and Victoria would start to tear into him. Victoria did not like Jason for a number of reasons and it was far from a secret that the feeling was mutual. Jason eventually told her that she should not encourage Shego's "inappropriate behavior" and Victoria took that with some major offense, thus prolonging the verbal killing that she was making.

Kim had taken some time out of her life to make herself miserable and try to talk to her grandmother. But, Nana was not trying to hear anything from her and turned her head from the young lady as soon as she sat down. Kim cut her looses since the weekend was about being happy. After all, she had her son and she was about to get married to the love of her life. She would worry about Nana some other time.

Once she left Nana, she ran right into the Wegos. She could not believe it, but they were actually shamelessly hitting on her the night before she was getting married to their sister. When she pointed that out, their exact words were "that's tomorrow, let's think about tonight." The Wegos also really wanted to know if Kim was going to wear a collar for the wedding. She came very close to hitting them before just walking away.

The night was interesting to say the least. Once Jason was put in his place and everyone against the union remained quiet, they all had a relative good time. There was some yelling at the twins roaming the room, but that was expected. After they were all done, everyone went to their rooms to get ready for the main event in the morning.

--------------

Kim sat up late at night, staring at the ceiling. She silently admitted to herself that she might be just a little nervous. Hey, she was getting married in the morning. It was _so_ the drama.

She was decided to get up and do some walking, but it was a little difficult to do that without waking Shego. The pale woman had her arm wrapped around Kim's waist and was holding her tightly. The redhead tried to ease away from her anyway, but Shego did stir.

"What's wrong?" the emerald-eyed female inquired.

"I'm thirsty," Kim answered.

"Okay. If you go out for a soda, remember to take a key," Shego said.

"I know," the redhead replied.

Shego released Kim and the younger woman slid out of bed. She checked on Todd, who was laid out in the other bed with the pillow over his face instead of under his head, and then she left. She went down to the bar and sat down. She was about to order a drink, but a familiar voice ordered for her. Kim turned around to see if it was the person that she thought it was.

"I believe that's what you drink, right?" a blonde inquired.

"Justine?" Kim asked in disbelief. What was Justine doing there?

--------------

Next time: What is Justine doing there?


	5. Reason Five: Never look back

I don't own these characters or the original premise behind this saga. I also don't own Pepsi or Hennessey.

Reason Five: Never look back

_I'll hold your hand as we walk off into the unknown and you can rest assured we'll make it to the other end. The move steps we take, the closer we get to where we need to go and you'll never want to turn around. _

Kim was stunned by what she was seeing. For some reason, the first woman that she had ever entered a relationship with was standing behind her while she was sitting at the bar in the hotel that she was going to getting married in when the morning came. What was Justine Flanner doing there? Was it a coincidence or was Justine aware that she was about to get married in the morning? She supposed that she was about to find out.

"Are you going to invite me to sit or are you just going to stare at me all night?" Justine inquired in her usual slightly snobbish tone. It was hard to tell that she was attempting to be friendly and humorous.

"Um…okay, you can sit," Kim replied. "It's a free country, after all," she added to make sure the response was not taken as anything deeper than what it was.

Justine smiled a bit and sat down next to the shorter female. Kim's drink was brought to her; it was Pepsi mixed with Hennessey. Justine ordered one for herself too and then turned her attention to Kim.

"You look lovely," Justine commented, which was not like her. It did not help matters that Kim was dressed in some pajamas to just known that she was being b.s-ed.

"Thanks," the petite hero muttered. She was a bit uncomfortable being complimented by her former girlfriend and not just because she was about to get married in the morning. It was just that the blue-eyed genius hardly ever complimented her in all the time that they had known each other.

"So, I hear you're getting married," Justine said. Quite the conversation opener, Kim thought sarcastically.

"In the morning. How'd you hear that?" the redhead inquired rather curiously. It was not like she or Shego had been telling scores of people. In fact, the people that were invited to the wedding were the people that they told, not counting her grandmother or Shego's aunt and cousin.

"Your father was running around the laboratory telling anyone that would listen that his little girl was getting married. I happen to be working there for the moment, so I got to hear this. I could hardly believe my ears. You're getting married. To that woman that you were in the mall with?" the blonde scientist guessed.

Kim nodded as an answer. She did not say anything because she was taking in what Justine said and she did not owe Justine any real answers anyway. She could not believe her father had actually been telling everyone that she was getting married to Shego. After all, her father hardly understood her sexuality and yet he was running around telling all of his colleagues that she was marrying a woman. Funny, he was certainly open-minded for a guy who had problems with circus folk and showbiz folk. She smiled softly to herself because of that; at least she knew that she was not disappointing him and that he was genuinely happy for her.

"So, you showed up because I'm getting married?" Kim asked after a couple of seconds of silence.

"I showed up to give you a chance to not make a bad decision," Justine replied.

The redheaded adventurer looked rather confused by that statement. Bad decision? How in the hell could it be a bad decision to marry the love of her life? Even though she was sitting at the bar because nervousness had finally set on, she knew that she was not making a bad decision. She was with the person that she wanted to be with and she had known that from almost day one.

"How is it a bad decision?" Kim inquired. She just had to hear Justine's reasoning behind the statement. She did not even want to think about what the blonde was hoping to accomplish.

"That woman, she's not your equal," Justine replied rather soundly.

"Meaning?"

"She's not good for you. Honestly, how could she offer you any kind of companionship? You probably can't hold a decent conversation with her and surely you don't hold the same interests. She probably doesn't know the basics of any science that you're currently into. Why would you want to marry someone who doesn't know anything about the subjects that interest you?" Justine pointed out.

Kim was silent for a moment. Now, it was somewhat true that she and Shego did not hold the many of the same interests, but they did hold some. They were both very into martial artists and they downright loved sparring with each other whenever they had the chance. They had similar tastes in movies and they could do extreme sports together, if Shego had the time for it anyway considering that they both liked to base-jump. They did not need to have all of the same interests to get along or hold a conversation. In fact, their differences helped hold conversations better than anything that they had in common.

"I would marry her because I love her," Kim stated with conviction.

"You don't really love her," Justine argued.

"How would you know?" Kim asked. It was not like Justine knew her well and even if she did, she had changed since the last time she and the blonde had any meaningful interactions with each other.

Justine smiled a little bit; it was about as big as she could smile. She put her hand out and reached over to caress Kim's cheek. It would seem that it was about just what Kim thought it was. She could not understand why Justine would waste her time over it.

"Justine," the redhead started to say, but she wanted to get her words just right. She did not want to hurt Justine's feelings too much.

"Kim, just leave. We could start over and be together again," Justine suggested quite seriously. The look in her eyes seemed to actually plead with the smaller female to leave with her.

Kim had to use all of her willpower to not laugh out loud at that proposition. Start over with Justine? The woman that ordered her around like a slave? The woman that broke up with her because she wanted to continue to be a hero while in the relationship? The woman that criticized almost all of her academic endeavors because they were not the ones the blonde wanted her to do? She was supposed to leave Shego to go back to that? It would have to be an extremely cold day in Hell for such a thing to occur.

"Justine, you're kidding right?" Kim asked because, to her, it had to be a joke. The taller woman had to be kidding because that was the only way the whole idea made any sense to her.

"What?" Justine said as if she did not understand.

"You have to be kidding. Either that, or you don't remember anything that happened while we were together."

"We had a good relationship," the blonde stated.

"No, we didn't. At least, most of the time anyway. You wanted to control every aspect of what happened in the relationship and you broke up with me in the first place," the hero pointed out in case that slipped her former girlfriend's mind.

"That doesn't mean we can't give it another try," Justine argued.

"It'd only end the same way," Kim said and she moved away from Justine's hand, which had remained on her face until that moment.

"Kim."

"Justine, nothing you can say to me will make me change my mind. I'm getting married tomorrow and I'm getting married to Shego. She accepts me for who I am and doesn't seriously belittle me more than half the time because she doesn't agree with something I'm doing. I do love her," the slender hero stated firmly.

"Kim, she's beneath you," Justine replied.

Justine could not believe that Kim would chose someone intellectually inferior to marry. She had always hoped, wished, _wanted_ Kim to come back to her. She thought that it would have been the logical decision since no one could measure up to her in her own opinion. When she broke up with Kim, she had truly not expected that the redhead would never come back.

The blonde also had not counted on missing Kim as much as she had when she broke up with the petite adventurer. She thought that it was the best thing to do at the time, but she silently admitted a long time ago that she had made a mistake. She had thought that mistake would correct itself because she thought that Kim would come back to her, but then she saw the redhead in the mall with Shego. And then to make matters worse, she heard Kim was getting married. She could not believe what had gone through her when she heard that news.

Justine thought that she was going to have a heart attack when she heard that her Kim was getting married. The redhead was supposed to come back to her, yet she had gone and found someone new. It actually hurt quite a bit, like being punched in the stomach repeatedly, but Justine tried to ignore it. Even though she tried to pretend that the agony was not there, she found herself flying out of the country to go to the island that Kim's wedding was taking place. She wanted to get Kim back, but it seemed like that was not going to happen.

"Kim," Justine said in a low voice after a long pause.

"Yeah?" Kim replied.

"I love you and I want you to come back to me. I'm the right one for you and you know that. So, stop fooling around and just leave with me," Justine said. It sounded very much like an order.

Kim could not believe her ears. It was like Justine had totally forgotten what their relationship had been like. It was like she could not do anything right when it came to Justine. Everything she did came under scrutiny and she did mean everything. Kim could not get out of bed without drawing some kind of criticism from the blonde and she did not even want to recall what used to happen when they were in bed. It was just too much and she would never go back to it.

The olive-eyed scientist never went back to anyone, except Shego. It was one of the things that let her know that she loved that cranky green-skinned female. She only felt a void in her entire being when she was away from Shego. Still, she disliked that Justine was pained by the fact that she had moved on.

"Justine, you're a very special woman. Beautiful and smart, but you're not the one for me. I know you'll find someone that is right for you, someone that you really love, but trust me, I'm not the one for you. We're just not made for each other. That's the best way I can put it," Kim said and then she got up. "I'm not saying this to hurt you. I'm saying it because it's the truth. You'll find someone for you, just like I found someone for me. And when you find that person, you'll know what love really is."

Kim leaned over and kissed Justine on the cheek. She then walked away before Justine could say anything. The blonde wanted to call out to Kim, but her voice failed her. She felt like she was going to cry as the redhead walked out of her life. Why had she let that one go, she silently demanded to know. She felt like such a fool.

Kim went back up to the room. She was not so nervous anymore now, which she thought was odd. Seeing Justine made her all too aware that she making the best decision when it came to relationships. She went to crawl back into bed, but found that Shego was gone. She guessed that she had been so long that Shego had gone to look for her. Well, she would just wait for the pale woman to return to the room.

--------------

Shego walked over to the bar and sat down, right next to Justine. The blonde did not notice her. Justine was too busy trying not to cry since Kim had left her instead of leaving with her. She had not planned on that happening and it hurt more than she would have imagined.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Shego demanded to know, speaking to the blonde. Her voice was harsh and cold because the last thing she wanted to see before the wedding was someone that her lover used to date.

"You," Justine said with disdain in her voice and a frown as she finally noticed the pale green female.

"Yeah, me. What the hell do you think you're doing?" Shego asked with anger in her voice because she could guess what the blonde scientist was doing. The bitch had to come and try to steal her girl, her Princess. Like hell that was going to happen, but she still had to express some frustration about it.

"None of your concern," Justine answered while regaining her composure.

"Listen carefully, bitch. She's mine. You can't have her, so stay away from her. You're not good for her and you'd only hurt her in the end, so just stay the hell away from her," the green-skinned female commanded.

"She's not yours. She's only making a foolish decision, which is common for her. She'll soon realize her mistake and come back to me," Justine declared with confidence.

Shego scoffed. "Yeah, because she's been dying to get back to you since you broke up with her. You two are over. You let her go, so leave her alone. She's my girl, my fiancée, and tomorrow, she's going to be my wife. I'm the one that's going to take care of her for the rest of her life. I'm the one that's going to make her happy. Do you know why? Because she wants to be with me, so leave her the fuck alone."

"Afraid that if I'm around she'll realize that you are inferior to her?" Justine taunted the emerald-eyed female.

Shego scoffed again. "I don't think you're anywhere near a threat to me. I just don't want you to hurt her or upset her. See, if you do that, it just pisses me off. I wouldn't recommend pissing me off."

Justine looked rather skeptical. "I'm not afraid of you."

"That's the problem," Shego commented and then she held up on hand.

She flared her plasma. Justine gulped, having never seen something like that before. Shego could see the fear in Justine's eyes now and that made her smirk. It was about time that she got her point across.

"Now, I know you might think you're hot shit, but I'm hotter. You're not a fighter, that's easy to see. You're a big brain in some soft skin. You don't want to know how easily I can go through that soft skin. So, leave my Princess alone because I'm not interested in going through this shit again," Shego stated firmly.

The pale woman stood up and walked off, knowing that she had gotten her point across rather well. Justine was too smart to do something stupid, like challenge Shego over Kim. The blonde did just sit there at the bar, sipping her drink. She knew that she had lost Kim and it was like having her heart torn out of her chest several times over. She could not hold back her tears any longer and the liquid flowed from her eyes like heavy rain.

Shego could care less than nothing about how Justine felt. Justine had her chance with Kim and she botched it. The energetic hero did not go back to Justine after the blonde woman let her go, so it was clear that Kim did not want to be with her. Justine needed to just let it go as far as Shego was concerned.

The pale woman returned to the hotel room and saw that Kim was in bed. She slid in next to the redhead, who curled up into her chest as soon as she was settled in. Shego wrapped her arms around Kim and kissed her forehead.

"Where'd you go?" Kim asked curiously.

"Looking for you. I thought you were gone a little long for a drink," Shego explained.

"Sorry to worry you," the younger woman apologized sincerely.

"It's all right."

Kim nodded and they fell back to sleep. They were both still a little nervous about things, but they both were more than confident that they were making the right decision. They were with the person that they wanted to share their lives with, so now it was just about making a formal commitment about that.

----(Next day)

"Oh, crap," Shego muttered as she pulled out her outfit for the day. She was in the room alone because Kim left to change in her parents' room and Isabel had come for Todd to keep him out of trouble.

Shego could not believe her luck. As she pulled out her outfit, she got to see that it had a tear in it. It was like she was cursed, she thought. She was not sure what to do, so she ran to the one person that she thought might be able to help her. She went across the hall and pounded on Monique's room door.

"Shego, what are you doing? Shouldn't you be getting ready?" Felix asked as he answered the door.

"Where the hell is your wife?" Shego demanded to know.

"She's getting ready, just like you should be," he answered.

Shego moved by Felix and went into the room. Monique was in the bathroom, touching up her makeup. She was surprised to see Shego through the mirror, so she turned around to see what the problem was, especially since Shego had a look of panic in her eyes.

"What happened?" Monique asked.

"There is a tear in my dress," Shego answered.

"Shit, I thought you stored it in your carryon luggage to make sure it would be all right," Monique said.

"It would seem that wasn't enough with my shitty luck. Can you fix it?"

"Before the wedding?"

"No, after," Shego answered sarcastically. "Because I really need the fucking dress after the wedding."

"Don't be snippy. Bring the dress and let me see."

Shego nodded and went to retrieve the dress. She brought the garment to Monique and the chocolate-eyed woman inspected the problem. She could not believe Shego's luck either. Someone somewhere just had to have it out for Shego in their opinions.

"Um…do you have a backup plan?" Monique asked.

"I do, but I want to wear this dress," Shego replied.

"Okay, okay, okay. I can understand that, but I'm not totally sure if I can have this fixed in less than an hour to where it will be presentable. I'm going to try, though. No way in hell I'm letting even the slightest thing go wrong with my homegirl's wedding," the wavy-haired woman declared.

"Okay, just do your best. I'm going to go get into my other outfit, just in case," Shego said.

Monique nodded and went to work on the dress while Shego went to get into her other clothes. The pale woman could not believe her luck. She really wanted to wear that dress, but she did have her backup plan just in case what happened did happen. Hey, she was not taking any chances.

Once she was dressed, she went to go check on Todd. He was already outside with Isabel. The middle-aged martial artist was trying to make sure that everything was right for the ceremony, which was going to take place in about forty-five minutes. She also had to make sure Jason and Hego acted right. There was also a problem with Lynn trying to get a cameraman to film everyone and quite a few people not wanting to be filmed.

"What the hell? Firefly, what the hell are you wearing?" Isabel demanded to know when she caught sight of Shego.

Shego was dressed in a tux with an emerald-colored vest. The tux was pressed and looked rather sharp on her. The suit had been her backup plan, but she really had wanted to wear her dress. She and Kim had agreed to wear dresses after a few long discussions to thoroughly plan everything out, but they had not let the other see the dress because they thought it would be a nice surprise.

"Mommy, don't start with me," Shego said in a firm tone. She definitely was not in the mood to hear that devil woman's mouth with the day that she was already having.

"No, what the fuck is this? Like hell I'm letting my daughter get married in a fucking suit! You go put on a fucking dress right now before I kick your narrow ass!" Isabel hollered with fury burning brightly in her eyes.

"Goddamn it, Mommy! Do you think I wanted this to happen?" Shego screamed back.

"Who gives a fuck? Just go fucking change!" the older female commanded.

"Into what!" the daughter shot back.

Todd was going to remain hiding behind Isabel or his She-she, but they started moving away to have their argument and he noticed that damned cameraman coming close. He decided to make a run for it because he did not want to be on camera, but that guy just was not listening to him or taking the hint considering he kept ducking when the cameraman came near him. It did not help matters for the boy that the cameraman was a stranger. He went to crawl under a chair, even though he knew that was not the best hiding place, but it was a hiding place.

"Hey, Smiles, you don't want to mess up your suit," Betty commented as she pulled Todd out from under the chair.

"But…but…but…" Todd could not even explain himself and just pointed to the cameraman.

"What? Your She-she?" Betty asked. The problem with pointing at the cameraman at the moment was that he was next to Shego and Isabel and actually filming the argument, which looked ready to get violent. Betty could not believe that they were arguing when the wedding was supposed to start in about a half hour now. She decided to leave Todd to his own devices to go see what that pair was huffing about, although she suspected that it had to do with the suit that Shego was wearing, which Todd seemed to be wearing the pint-sized version of. Todd decided to get moving since Betty was not there to hold him back and he saw that the cameraman was starting to come after him again.

"Hey, kid," the cameraman called to the child.

Todd gulped and tried to hurry his escape. He ended up being caught and the cameraman grabbed him by the arm. Todd nearly had a heart attack from the contact and acted on instructions from his Kimmie and She-she about if a stranger touched him. He bit the guy in the arm and then kicked him in the shin with all his might; his guardians had actually told him to aim higher than that if he could.

"Ah, you little brat!" the cameraman hollered in agony.

Todd took off since it was clear that he made the guy angry. The cameraman spent the appropriate few seconds hopping around and being in pain and then he turned his attention back to the fleeing boy. He gave chase and Todd noticed. The child was now extremely frightened and he started looking around for his guardians. Oh, god, where was his She-she and Kimmie?!

"Come here, kid," the cameraman said.

Todd turned to see where the man was and saw that he was right behind him. The redheaded child had a feeling that he was not going to get out of the mess that he was in unless something or someone saved him. He then turned around to look in front of him to watch his path, but he was too late. He ran right into bag of golf clubs. He and the bag slipped to the ground.

"Whoa, kid, are you all right?" the cameraman asked and he leaned down, looking to help the child.

"Ah!" Todd shouted and he scrambled to his feet, touching a golf club as he did. He picked up the club while standing up and then he held the club in front of him as if he had a samurai sword.

"Okay, kid, just calm down. I'm not looking to hurt you," the cameraman tried to assure the boy. He did not even want to see what the child might do with that club since he had already kicked and bit him.

"Go away!" Todd pled; his expression was close to begging.

"I just want you to say something into the camera—" the older male tried to explain, but he was cut off by a more forceful command from the child.

"Go away!" the boy repeated. Aside for the fact that the man was a stranger, Todd just did not have much affection for cameras. He hated having them stuck in his face because his biological parents were always forcing him to pictures and saying things like "smile for the nice man" or something like that and he knew it was because they wanted it to look like he was happy kid and they were good parents. Cameras were just devices for visual lies as far as he was concerned.

"Kid, just say something—"

Todd was not even trying to hear it. He took a swing with the driver that was in his hands and lucky struck the camera and not the man holding it. The cameraman did yelp and he dropped the camera as if it was hot lead. Todd then went ape on the device with the golf club.

"Ah! My 500 dollar driver! You horrible little monster!" Jason screamed when he saw that his clubs had been flung from the bag that they were housed in and Todd was using one to destroy a camera.

"Ah!" Todd hollered in fright when Jason came at him. Why were so many people going after him, the child wondered in a panic. He was ready to cry by now because of the terror going through him.

"Dad, what the fuck are you doing?" Shego shouted over to him when she noticed that he was marching toward her son and the boy looked absolutely horrified. If her father had done something to her little boy, not even her mother would be able to pull her off the self-righteous bastard, she thought heatedly.

"He wrecked my clubs!" Jason answered to justify his actions. The response caught his wife's immediate attention.

"You brought golf clubs to our daughter's wedding?" Isabel shrieked in disbelief. Their only daughter was getting married and he thought that there would be time for golf? She was going to wring his thick neck!

"This is a fight I can jump into," Victoria commented to herself. Anytime her big sister was about to chew out the pompous ass that she was married to it, it was always something that Victoria could get behind. So, she went with Isabel to yell Jason while Shego tried to take care of Todd.

Lynn noticed what happened to the camera and she wanted to know the cause for its destruction. When the cameraman explained what happened, she went to go yell at the decided brat, also known as Todd. When she started yelling at the child, who turned away from her because of fright, Shego started getting on Lynn for scaring and hollering at her son. The brothers of the brides just watched it all happen while eating potato chips that they had all gotten out of a vending machine in the hotel.

"Mego, you have got to write about this wedding," Walter commented.

"What the hell do you think I'm taking notes on?" Mego replied. He did, indeed, have a small pad out and he was taking notes on everything.

"Is there beer around here or something? This is like a fucking movie," Wallace said in an awed voice. Out of everything that their family ever made entertaining, he could not believe that they added to the already interesting wedding. It was already interesting because his sister was getting married to a hot female that they met in a collar, of course.

"This is what happens when two people that shouldn't be together try to be together. It's a sign," Hego stated as if that was a fact.

"No, a sign would be if Kim came out here in a collar and bikini," Walter said.

"How is that a sign?" Hego inquired in a confused tone because he did not see the connection.

"It means God obviously loves us," Wallace replied with a lecherous smile toward his double.

"A better sign would be if Shego lost the suit sometime in the next ten seconds," Tim argued.

"And whatever's under the suit too," Jim added.

"You're all perverts," Hego said to the twins. It was almost like it was news to him.

"Is it he just likes taking the high road or is gay beyond all belief?" Tim asked the Wegos. From what he and Jim could tell, Hego just liked to shoot down anything that might be considered fun, so they figured that he was more inclined to act better than everyone else than to actually be against the things he said, but they were not totally sure.

"We have yet to figure that out," Wallace answered.

"Guys, I think we're going to need more snacks," Mego commented as Kim and Ann came to join the mayhem. He was starting to think that he would never be able to go to another wedding again because no wedding on Earth could possibly be so entertaining before it even happened.

"We really need beer," Walter said and he was dead serious.

Kim and her mother did join the yelling because they wanted to know what was wrong. They also wanted to know what the hell Shego was wearing. Kim could have sworn that Shego was joking when she said that she was going to wear a tux to their wedding.

"Shego, what the hell are you wearing?" Kim demanded to know.

"Will everybody stop asking me that fucking question!" Shego hollered in sheer frustration.

"Here's a better question for you then, who's going to pay for my clubs?" Jason inquired.

"You shouldn't have brought those damn things in the first fucking place!" Isabel screamed at him.

"Yeah, you're daughter's getting married! You don't have fucking time to work on your handicap!" Victoria added.

"What about the camera?" Lynn pointed out.

"Fuck the camera!" Shego replied.

"Who cares about a camera? Where's your dress?" Kim asked her fiancée.

"What's going on?" Ron asked the brothers as he walked over to their group. He stole some of Tim's popcorn.

"Either a wedding or a war. It's hard to tell," Wallace answered.

"From all the swearing, I'd go with war to be on the safe side," Jim commented.

"Usually Hego has to be kicked in the nuts for it to be a war with Shego involved. I'm sure you find this a refreshing change, eh, big guy?" Walter said to his eldest brother. Hego only frowned.

"Well, all I can say is, at least I'm not getting yelled at," Ron remarked and all of guys could agree with that one.

--------------

Next time: do they actually get to wedding or do they just all kill each other?


	6. Reason Six: Make love, not war

I don't own these characters or the original premise behind this saga.

Reason Six: Make love, not war

_It was like seeing you for the first time and it was love at first sight. I was dazed, but it was all right; you were the same. It only made me realize I couldn't love you any more if I tried. _

Monique walked out to the space where the wedding was going to be held and found the great free-for-all argument going on. She arched an eyebrow in curiosity and hoped that no one was going to come to blows from the looks on their faces and the volumes that they were yelling at. She then dared venture into that mess. She was a brave soul, the audience of the argument thought; the brides' brothers were the audience.

"Shego," Monique said.

"What!" Shego snarled because she was just getting it for all sides as far as she was concerned and then she noticed who was talking to her. "Oh, didn't know it was you," she said as sort of an apology for her tone. She doubted that it would be in her best interest to show anger toward the person doing her a very important favor.

"It's cool. I fixed the little problem, so you can go ahead and change. What the hell is this mess, though?" Monique inquired while looking around at the argument, which was still raging on without a key player, namely Shego.

"It's bullshit is what is it. I need to change," the green-skinned female stated and she suddenly handed Todd over to Monique. She had been holding the boy because it looked like her father was going to hurt the redheaded child over his precious golf clubs. Shego then rushed off.

"Where's she going?" Kim asked Monique, referring to Shego.

"To get decent, so everybody might want to get into place and everything," Monique answered with a rather bright smile. She was willing to bet that everyone would be breathless when they saw Shego once she changed.

"Good luck telling them that." Kim motioned to Jason, Isabel, and Victoria, who were all still going back and forth with each other. Lynn went to whine to her mother and aunt about the camera since Shego had left; Lynn had been hollering at her cousin about it before since it had come to light that Todd was the one that destroyed the expensive mechanism.

"I'm not even going to bother," Monique replied. Only a mad person would try to stop all of that.

The argument raged on until Isabel suddenly stopped hollering in mid-sentence. Something caught her attention, which did not go by her husband or her sister. They turned to look where Isabel had her eyes trained to see what had her attention. They were witnessing the reasoning for the gathering.

Kim and Shego were standing together, each admiring the other's dress; along with the person inside of the dress. Shego's dress was strapless with an emerald band going around the top, but the dress was white. There was a green undertone to it, though. It flared out only slightly at her hips and stopped right at her feet in the front, but the back dragged a short train. There was also an emerald band going around the bottom of the dress. She had on gloves that matched the green of the dress and her hair was up for the first time since Kim had known her. She had a white veil with a green hue that fell to where her hair usually fell at her back.

Kim had on a pearl white gown. It had thin straps and flared out more than Shego's dress. At the waist on her left side was a small, cloth rose with red swirled into the design. The gown easily covered her feet, pooling around on the ground like spilled milk. She also had her hair up. It was in a bun with a tiara around the mane. The tiara had been picked out by Shego because she wanted Kim to know what she was a princess. Kim also had a veil that fell to the small of her back.

"You look good," Shego commented in a low tone. It was the first thing that came to mind and she knew that it was lame, but at least it was the truth.

Kim smiled shyly. "Thanks. You do too."

It was almost like they were seeing each other for the first time or had been set up on a blind date that they were shocked to find was not some deformed monster. They were both blushing, which Shego's family thought was too amusing since they could not recall the last time that they saw her blush. It was obviously time to start the ceremony.

Isabel breathed a sign of relief to see her daughter in a wedding dress while everyone began to take some seats for the reason that they were there. Kim and Shego stood before the local magistrate that was going to perform the ceremony. They smiled at each other while he spoke. They both silently wished that he would hurry up too.

By the time the magistrate was finished with everything, everyone was ready to burst; well, everyone that was for the wedding anyway. Kim threw herself into Shego's arms for their first kiss as a married couple and they both made sure it was a deep kiss. Their little brothers then did something that was probably inappropriate to do at a wedding, they began whistling, hooting, and hollering, instead of regular cheering. Jason and Nana Possible turned their heads in pure disgust at the sight of two females being together.

Todd crawled out of his chair and ran over to his guardians. He hugged them around the legs, which got their attention. They broke the kiss to look down at him and Kim picked him up. He hugged her and then turned to hug Shego. They both hugged him back at the same time.

"This is too wonderful," Isabel commented. She was fighting back tears. She had not thought that she would be so overjoyed that she might actually cry, but she was carrying a handkerchief for just such an emergency.

"You're so lucky," Victoria said to her sister. She was misting up herself. She was happy for her only niece to have found love in her life and she was smart enough to hold on to it.

"I can't believe our little Kimmie is married now," Ann said while wiping her eyes. She was crying slightly. She did not expect to cry, but she was actually happy that Kim was married to Shego of all people.

James just put his arm around his wife and smiled. He was happy too, elated really. They both knew that Shego would take good care of Kim since she had been doing as such for a while. When they stopped and looked at things, they could see that Kim was doing quite well with Shego and she seemed to be thoroughly enjoying life. So, they were as happy for Kim as they could possibly be.

"Does this mean we can't hit on Kim anymore?" Wallace asked Walter in a slightly curious tone.

"If she didn't want to be hit on, she shouldn't have worn that dress," Walter answered as if that made any sense.

Wallace nodded in agreement with that and then he turned his attention to the Possible twins. "So, you two distract Shego and we'll distract Kim," he suggested.

"I like that plan," Tim replied with a demonic smile.

"Me too," Jim concurred with an equally devilish smirk.

The twins wasted no time in trying to put the plan into action, only to be yelled at by the newly married couple. The boys' mothers also stepped in and scolded them for acting out. After reprimanding the twins for their behavior, everyone moved on to the reception, which was being held in a hall in the hotel.

Kim and Shego hit the dance floor and danced with each other and Todd since Kim was still holding him. It was their first time slow dancing and their first time dancing together around other people. After a few minutes, Todd worked his way out of Kim's grip and left his guardians to enjoy their dance alone. He was going to go hunt for something to eat while they were distracted too.

The tables holding the food were a little too high for Todd to see everything. He stood on his tiptoes and tried to see what was being offered. He then looked around for Ron since he knew that the blonde young man would help him get food whether or not he had permission from his guardians to have certain things. Ron was busy dancing with Yori, though. Todd pouted.

"What's up, little guy?" Walter asked as he and Wallace walked by Todd.

The child whimpered a bit, but silently told himself to calm down. He knew that Walter and Wallace were Shego's brothers. They were all right and there was no need to be scared of them. They might even help, his brain told him.

"I can't see the food," Todd answered.

"Is that all? Here ya go." Wallace grabbed Todd's arms and lifted him up to see what was on the table.

Todd's mouth practically fell to the floor when he saw the spread. There were all kinds of finger-foods laid out on the table. The closest food to him was shrimp and he wanted some of that.

"Can you get me shrimp?" Todd asked Walter since he was the twin with the free hands.

"No problem, little dude. Anything else?" Walter inquired as he started putting some shrimp in a napkin for the child.

Todd nodded and began naming things that he wanted. Walter had no problem packing all of those things on a plate of Todd, neither he nor his double bringing up the fact that it might be too much for the boy. Todd was practically grinning from ear to ear once he had his plate of foods. He silently decided that he liked his uncles.

The boy went to find a seat to enjoy his food and he watched the adults enjoy the party. Adults sure liked to dance, he thought because all of the couples were out on the dance floor. He smiled when he focused on his Kimmie and She-she. He did not totally understand what the big deal was about a wedding, but he knew that it was something extraordinary. So, he knew that he needed to be very happy for them and he was.

"How much longer do I have to stay here?" Jason asked Isabel. Yes, they were actually on the dance floor, slow dancing together.

"What do you mean?" Isabel countered.

"Do you know what kind of scandal this could bring to me?"

"Why can't you just be happy for your daughter? Why do you have to be so selfish all the damn time? This is supposed to be the happiest day of her life and you're worried about your shitty career. Be happy for your daughter."

"Be happy that she's gay? You do know that you're never going to have biological grandchildren from her now, right?" he pointed out because he thought that was the reason Isabel was so happy. He was aware that she wanted grandchild and as far as he could tell, she would probably spoil any kids that Shego would have had rotten since Shego was clearly her favorite child.

"It's not about grandchildren, dearest. It's about our daughter finding someone that makes her happy, someone that's going to take care of her and make sure she's all right. And you should be happy for her."

"She's gay," he said as if that was a reason to be angry with the fact that Shego was probably the happiest in life as she had ever been.

"I see. You'd rather that she had married that creepy Drakken fellow then?" Isabel asked, even though she knew the answer to that.

She was aware that her husband knew what happened with that guy considering how public the trial was. That blue bastard had tried to kill her little girl and her little girl's love. It had upset her, of course, when she found out about it and something had to be done to make her feel better. So, now, whenever Drakken was in with the regular prison population, someone would come out of nowhere and beat him bloody and that was going to happen to him until the day Isabel died because she had not intention of calling off the people that she had going at him.

"Of course I didn't want her to marry Drakken, but why can't she just be normal?" Jason inquired.

"Because none of our children are normal," Isabel pointed out. The most normal child they had was Mego in her opinion and he was purple, so it did not leave him much room to be too normal. Their children had actually always been slightly strange before they even got hit by that comet.

"Still," he huffed. He was not willing to accept the fact that none of their children were normal. It seemed that just the ones Isabel took a special interest in were not normal, namely Shego and the twins.

Jason glanced over at Shego. She was still dancing with Kim and it was easy to see that she was close to bubbling over with joy, even though she was trying so hard to contain herself. He shook his head, not only was she a lesbian, but she was also with someone younger than she was, seven years younger. She was practically cradle robbing too. It was shameful in his opinion.

Shego would have cared less than a damn if she knew what her father thought. The only person that mattered at the moment was Kim, her princess. She was ready to focus her energy on Kim all day long, but then Todd came out of nowhere. He tugged on one of their dresses; he could not tell whose it was, but it happened to actually be Kim's gown. They both glanced down at him and they knew that look. It was a look that they dreaded.

"My tummy hurts," Todd informed them.

"Damn it," Shego groaned.

"Where's the bathroom?" Kim asked in a panic because anytime Todd told them his stomach hurt it meant that they had about a minute to get him to a bathroom or there was going to be a horrible mess.

"That way." Shego pointed to the far end of the hall.

"Hold it in, Smiles," Kim begged as she grabbed him and dashed toward the bathroom, having to be careful and not trip over her dress.

"What's going on?" Ann wondered out loud as she watched Kim hurry past her with Todd in her arms.

"Todd must've had too much to eat," Monique answered since she was close enough to the doctors to hear the question. She was dancing with Felix; hey, he never let the wheelchair stop him from doing things.

"Too much to eat?" James echoed in a puzzled tone.

"Todd has a habit of wanting to try any food that he sees when he eats out, but he doesn't seem to realize that some foods just don't mix well, especially if they tasted good on the way down," Felix replied.

"Usually Kim or Shego watch him pretty carefully to make sure that doesn't happen, but you know, you can't watch a five or six-year-old all the time," Monique commented.

"That's true," Ann concurred. She knew a lot about having to watch out for hyperactive children, after all.

When Kim returned with Todd and no mess on either of them, everyone suddenly wanted to toast to the wedding. She wondered if a champagne fairy had gone around when she was gone because everyone did suddenly have a glass of champagne and that was why they were all ready to toast to the event. No one had stopped what they were doing for the toasts, though.

"Do we have to go through all of this sentimental bullshit?" Shego asked since everyone seemed to want to say something.

"Let them have their moment," Kim replied while walking back over to her spouse. Oh, that word sounded nice, she silently noted as the thought floated through her mind. She had a spouse. She suddenly began grinning.

"Dare I ask what's with the expression?" the pale woman inquired as she handed Kim a fluke of champagne, so she could be a part of all the toasts too.

Shego also had a cup of apple juice for Todd in case he wanted to join in, but she was not sure with the way his stomach was working. She gave him the cup anyway. He looked down at it, but he was not sure what it was for. He noticed everyone else had drinks, but they were not drinking from them, so he was going to wait.

"Nothing, just a nice thought in mind," the redheaded hero answered.

"Okay, so who's going first since everybody wants to say something all of sudden?" Shego asked the group.

"Oh, lemme do it!" Ron volunteered.

"Sure, we can get the stupidest one out of the way first," Shego remarked.

"Oh, ha, ha, ha," the blonde male said dryly. "K.P, we've been through a lot since kindergarten and it's been a wild ride. I know we're all grown up and everything, but I hope we keep on being best friends and I hope you don't let this cranky woman drive you stark raving mad. Don't let her put you in a doghouse either and I mean that literally. I wish you two luck because you're sure as hell going to need it with each other," he remarked with a loving grin.

"Here, here," Shego's little brothers all agreed.

"Glad we got that shit out of the way," the green-skinned female muttered as everyone took a sip of champagne. "Does anyone have anything worthwhile to say? Something worth listening to?"

"Us!" the Wegos shouted.

"Oh, god, someone who's not them," Shego said quite seriously.

"Us!" the tweebs volunteered.

"Someone who's not them," Kim pled.

"Hey!" both sets of twins protested to being so disrespected, especially in front of so many people.

"Fine, go," Shego sighed.

Neither set of twins disappointed when they offered up their toasts. They were better than what Ron offered until they started getting into having such hot sisters-in-law. Shego and Kim rolled their eyes, but they did drink to the toasts when their brothers were done acting like perverts. It was clear then that Ron had given the better mini-speech.

"Does anybody have a serious toast?" Shego inquired.

"Ours were serious!" the pair of twins argued.

"Okay, I got one," Monique announced.

"All right, hit us with it, Mo," Kim said.

"All right. I remember when Kim first told me and Ron about how she was Shego's pet. We thought it was the most bizarre thing that we had ever heard and that says a lot for people that spend all of their free time with Kim. We thought that it was crazy and that Shego was just disrespecting Kim, but Kim never thought of it that way and Shego, you might not know it, but Kim had already fallen for you then. You managed to get her to get her act together, which was something no one else could. As crazy as it might seem, I guess you two really need each other and it's great that you found each other. I wish you all the luck in your marriage and I hope it's just as good, if not better than what you already have," Monique said.

Everyone agreed with that and sipped their drinks. From then on, there were only nice, serious toasts. Yori added a few words in after Monique just wishing the couple the greatest happiness together. Felix said something similar, not being a man of many words, when he was on the spot anyway. Mego came next because he wanted the attention. Betty spoke up and had to reminisce about when she first heard Shego had a pet girl and how she watched the odd progression of the relationship. And despite the fact that she still considered Kim a brat, she hoped that they remained together for the rest of their lives because "the brat's good for Shego." Ann came up to bat when Betty was done.

"All right, I just want to say that everyone's pretty much said everything, but I do want to let you know I hope you two are always happy together. I know it took me a while to accept this, but I can see you two enjoy being with each other and I hope you continue to take care and support each other. Be good to each other," Ann said and everyone drank to that.

"I just want to tell you two to live it up and keep doing what you're doing," James added in and everyone drank to that.

Todd was out of juice by that time, so he did not get to drink to his grandfather's words. He was unaware that he was supposed to sip things when it came to toasts and he had been taking swigs. He poked his She-she in the leg to get her attention.

"What's wrong, gremlin?" Shego asked.

"Can I have some of yours?" Todd inquired, pointing to her drink. He did not want to be left out of the toast.

"Why?"

"I don't gots anymore," he informed her. Kim would have corrected his English, but Shego tended to let it go.

The green-skinned woman looked around. She leaned down to the boy and whispered to him to just take a sip. Todd nodded to show that he understood. He also knew that they were doing something bad because of the whisper, which he thought was funny. Usually, he did something bad with Kimmie.

"Shego, are you giving Smiley champagne?" Kim asked in sheer horror.

"What? What do you mean?" Shego replied while pulling the fluke from Todd's lips. He swallowed his sip and decided that he did not like whatever it was his She-she was drinking. "I'm not doing anything," Shego said to Kim with a much too innocent expression. "Come on, Smiles, let's get you some more apple juice," the pale woman said.

"Yeah, everybody get refills because you know I have to say something," Isabel pointed out.

It was pretty much a given for Isabel to say something. Everyone did refill their drinks. Shego did get Todd some more apple juice, so he could take part in the toast. She and the child went back over to Kim and stood with her as Isabel started her toast.

"Shego, ever since you were little and getting into trouble with Betty, all I ever wanted was for you to be happy, which was why I let you get in trouble. From the moment I saw you with Kim, I could tell that there was magic there, even if you didn't want anyone to know. I always had faith in you to put together a good life and I'm glad that you found Kim because she obviously helped you build a happy life. I'm glad she's stuck with you because you're obviously stubborn like a mule, closed off, and let's not forget hardheaded, but she knew that you two were made for each other and she never gave up on you. I hope you two always fight for each other and make sure that you make each other happy. You two should take good care of each other and your little son. And now, I want you to know, I'm expecting more grandkids," Isabel announced with a smile.

"Hear that boys," Shego called to her brothers.

"I think she means from you," Mego commented.

"The hell she does," Shego scoffed.

"I actually mean from all of you," Isabel said and her sons all coughed, their champagne went down the wrong way. Shego rolled her eyes.

The party went on. Everyone ate lunch and the pair of twins started getting antsy. They wanted to know when it was safe to leave because they wanted to go and hit the beach. They wanted to run into some hot, bikini-clad babes while they still had time. Shego waved her brothers off and told them to get out of her face, which they took as a sign to leave. The Possible twins followed them out.

"Beach?" Todd echoed and he turned to look at his Kimmie with a hopeful expression in his jade colored eyes.

"You want to go to the beach?" Kim asked the boy and he nodded. She turned to Shego. "You want to go to the beach?" she asked with a smirk.

Shego smiled; it would be great to see her wife in a bathing suit. "Fine, we'll go to the beach. Got to do something with Smiley before we send him back to that prison called school, right?" she teased the boy and rubbed his head. Isabel then walked over.

"You let your brothers leave to go chase girls on the beach?" Isabel asked Shego in disbelief.

"As long as they're not chasing my girl, they can run off a cliff for all I care," Shego replied.

Isabel shook her head. "I just hope they chase different girls," she commented.

"I wouldn't bet on it with the way Wally acts," the moss-hued female remarked.

"So, what's set for you two after this is done?" Isabel asked curiously.

"Well, we have to get Smiley back home tomorrow, so he doesn't miss class," Shego answered.

"Oh, class. What grade are you in, Smiley?" Isabel inquired, looking down at the child.

"One," he replied.

"Oh, first grade. You like school?"

He shook his head. Isabel had expected that answer, even though she thought that little kids tended to enjoy school more than big kids. She wondered why Todd had a problem with school.

"Tell your grandma about your big project," Kim encouraged Todd, hoping to get him more comfortable with the idea of speaking with Isabel.

"Project?" Isabel echoed in a curious tone.

"I had to make a collage," he answered. "Kimmie helped me last weekend and I gotta presents it on Monday. Tell the class about the animals on the paper," he explained.

"You like animals, huh? Are you going to be a herpetologist like Kimmie when you get bigger?" Isabel asked.

"The hell he is. I'm not putting up with any more reptiles or amphibians wandering around the house like they own the place," Shego declared. Kim still had the bad habit of bringing her work home with her much of the time.

"So, when are you two going to go on your honeymoon if you have to take him home?" Isabel asked.

"We're going to right after we take him home," Shego replied.

"Well, where?"

"It's a surprise for Princess," Shego answered.

"Surprise for me," Kim said with a grin on her face. She obviously liked the idea of getting a surprise honeymoon. Shego smiled just because of Kim's expression.

Isabel only laughed a bit. At least they had everything planned out. She wished them well and she did hope that somewhere along the line they decided to extend their family. She liked the idea of being a grandmother, whether the kids were biologically related or not, and she wanted Todd to understand while he was around.

--------------

Everyone did eventually start leaving the reception to go do their own thing since they were on an island paradise and everything. Kim and Shego did go change out their dresses and into some bathing suits. Shego had on a green and black one piece while Kim threw on a pink bikini with a scarlet sarong around her waist. Todd had on black trunks and he went wild when he hit the sand, running and doing cartwheels a few feet away from his guardians, but the distance was steadily growing.

"We have got to do something about his energy level," Shego said as she parked herself right in a lounge chair and set herself up for some sunbathing.

"Why? I love his enthusiasm. I'll watch him," Kim replied and she kissed Shego before chasing after Todd.

"Did everyone have the same idea?" Ann asked, speaking to Shego as she set up next to the pale woman.

"Hey, fun, sun, sand, who doesn't get this idea?" Shego replied with a bit of a shrug. "Where's the hubby?" she inquired while looking around for James.

"He's chasing Kim and Smiley, looking to have some fun with his daughter and grandson. I can't believe you two have a part-time son."

"Would have a fulltime son if his parents weren't loaded. The way they neglect the kid is just unbelievable. It's good that you've all accepted the little booger. He needs that," Shego commented.

Ann nodded and thought about Shego for a second. It was like Isabel always told her, she silently noted. There was much more to Shego than she ever let show and that was practically flashed on a billboard with the way she spoke about Todd. It was probably a great thing that she found Kim all of those years ago, maybe the best thing for both of them. It would seem that they brought out the best in each other somehow. She hoped that things would always be that way.

"Oh, and just to let you know, Isabel isn't the only one waiting for more grandchildren," Ann commented and Shego practically choked on air. Ann laughed while Shego silently wondered what the hell was up with everyone wanting grandchildren.

"Try to get to know the one you have before asking for more," the pale woman remarked after she regained her composure.

"Trust me, we all will, but it's just a heads-up," the doctor replied with a teasing smile as she settled into her lounge chair. Shego did not respond, even though she did not like allowing the neurosurgeon to have the last word.

--------------

Next time: the honeymoon.


	7. Reason Seven: Past Fears

I don't own these characters or the original premise of this saga.

Reason Seven: Past fears

_The sight and smell stir up a whirlpool of memories that make my heartbeat oddly. Reason and affections run parallel to that feeling, as if they're racing. The former seems to be in the lead, but the latter refuses to concede. _

Kim and Shego returned Todd to his biological parents, much to everyone's dismay, and spent almost no time at home. They packed for their honeymoon and caught a flight the next day. Shego held onto Kim's ticket for as long as she could to make sure Kim did not peek and even when Kim had to have her ticket, Shego covered the redhead's eyes while airline staff checked the ticket out. They all looked at Shego as if she was weird, but she ignored them. It was none of their business that she wanted things to remain a surprise for her Princess.

While going through everything with the airlines, Shego did have a good time when customs checked her luggage. She doubted that she ever saw anyone look so surprised in all their days as the customs' agent did that went through her bags. He coughed when he saw some of the things and then moved her along. She could not help smirking while walking off.

"Where are we going?" Kim begged to know, practically bouncing in her seat on the plane. The plane had not even taken off yet.

"Calm down, monster," Shego said while putting a settling arm around her anxious wife.

"I can't. I mean, I'm going on my honeymoon with the most wonderful woman on the planet who gave me a dream wedding, two awesome proposals, and everything that I could ever want. How can I calm down? How?" the redhead inquired, staring into her new spouse's eyes and showing just how jumpy she really was.

Shego smiled a bit. She could not believe how special Kim could make her feel just from a few sentences and a delighted look in her olive eyes. She leaned down, touching her forehead to Kim's and keeping eye contact. Even those simple gestures seemed loving and affectionate between the two.

"Just relax, Princess. I'm going to make this worth all of this secret stuff, okay? So, just relax," the pale woman said in a whisper and she placed a tiny peck to the side of Kim's mouth.

The kiss seemed to ease the wired nerves under Kim's skin, for the moment anyway. She stopped fidgeting and turned her attention to the window. She looked out, even though they were still on the ground. She still wondered where they were going and what her spouse had planned for them.

Shego turned her attention away from her petite wife as she heard a little kid going "ew!" As it turned out, the child saw her kiss Kim and the little girl seemed to think that it was disgusting. When the kid's mother noticed that Shego was looking at them, she turned the child away, but that did not stop Shego from opening her mouth.

"Why don't you tell that brat to mind her damn business?" the green-skinned female commented.

"Why don't you save such inappropriate behavior for when children aren't around?" the woman countered.

"Because I don't give a fuck about your kid, doy," Shego honestly replied. If she was all right with kissing Kim around their own son, she definitely was not going to curb her behavior for someone else's rugrat.

The woman seemed stunned into silence by the bluntness of the answer. She did not to know what to say as a riposte. Shego turned away from her, dismissing the silly woman outright because she did not need to be stressed at the moment. She was on her way to her honeymoon, after all.

Shego settled into her seat and just smiled to herself while thinking about what she had planned for their honeymoon. A week of sun, sand, and tropical water, not that she had a desire to see any of those things. The location was somewhat irrelevant, even though it was significant in its own right. It was just that she did not care about the scenery. She hoped that Kim would be of a like mind on that, but knowing how active her monster was, she was probably going to want to do things involving the beach. Shego just doubted that she would let Kim go.

The pale female glanced over at Kim as the plane began to move. Who would have thought that she would be married to that, she asked herself. Of course, she was not referring to Kim as "that" in any kind of demeaning manner. It was just a convenient way of wrapping up all that Kim was in one word. It was still so mind blowing and mind boggling. How had things come to where they were?

Shego just could not understand why Kim had fallen in love with her. The redhead said that it had happened when they first met and she could not figure out how that was plausible. She had treated Kim so poorly then, like the pet she was. What had she done to make the crazy kid fall in love with her? Was it really such a relief to have someone not expect anything of her at all?

Her thoughts were thrown off as Kim turned to her and smiled for no apparent reason, as the younger woman had a habit of doing. Shego reached over and caressed Kim's cheek. What did it matter when or why, she now asked herself. The important thing was that Kim loved her and she was going to do her best to make her girl happy for Kim to continue on loving her.

After a while, Kim turned her attention back to the window, but found cloud-gazing boring. She looked to see what the in-flight movie was, discovering that it was nothing that she felt like seeing. She decided that she might as well go to sleep. She had a feeling that she was going to be stuck on the plane for a few hours anyway. She leaned over onto Shego and closed her eyes, falling asleep effortlessly.

Shego glanced down at Kim and she smiled again. She was not sure what she had done for Kim to be in her life, but she was eternally grateful, she was certain of that much. She just Kim let sleep, hoping that the hero slept through the whole flight, even though she was not too sure if that was going to happen. They had a fairly long flight ahead of them, after all.

Shego eventually fell asleep too. By the time the plane landed, the couple was draped on each other. They woke up after the plane taxied in and everyone else was grabbing for their luggage. They looked around for a moment or two to get themselves together. They then stood up to get their own things and to get moving.

"Hold on," Shego said to Kim.

"What?" the redhead inquired.

"I've got to blindfold you," Shego informed her.

"You have to blindfold me in the middle of a crowded airport?" the hero asked in an incredulous tone.

"Yes, I have to blindfold you in the middle of a crowded airport. Don't you trust me?"

"Yeah, but this is still an airport."

"Just let me do this. It's all part of not ruining the surprise."

Kim yielded for the sake of the surprise. It seemed like Shego had gone through a lot of trouble and wanted everything to remain a mystery, so she blindfolded Kim before they even entered the airport. Kim trusted Shego to lead her about and they successfully navigated the crowded area. They took a cab to their hotel, but Kim was not even allowed to see where they were staying yet. Shego led her up to their room and just left her standing by the door.

"Can I take this off yet?" Kim asked, anxiously tugging at the black cloth that was tied around her head.

"No, and don't touch it either. Just leave it alone for a little while longer," Shego ordered while putting their bags away in the closet.

"Why?" Kim whined loudly, hoping that it would gain her some sympathy and she could take the blindfold off.

"Because I said so," came the expected response.

The smaller female sighed loudly, just to express her impatience. Shego ignored her and finished just dumping their bags in the closet. She then grabbed Kim around the waist and led her out of the room. The younger woman huffed, but went along with her spouse, wondering what the big secret was. She was ready to burst from anticipation.

The redhead tried to figure out where they might be from using her other senses. From the way sand was getting in her sneakers, she could guess that they were on a beach, which would also explain the salt water smell. Being on a beach did not narrow things down for her much because there were many beaches on the planet and she could be on any one of them with the way her wife worked.

"Okay," Shego said as they stopped.

"Okay what?" Kim asked.

"You can take it off," the green-skinned female announced.

Kim practically ripped the blindfold from her face to see what was going on. She found herself standing in front of some very familiar caves. She now knew where they were. They were on the island that Shego had taken her to on vacation when they were trying to take their relationship to another level; the relationship had seemed so hopelessly stagnant back then. Now, look where they were. She never would have guessed that it was possible for her to be married to Shego back then.

The caves held bittersweet memories for Kim. She and Shego had had a lovely, calm night walking along the beach and staring at the rock formations for a few minutes, making it seem like everything would be totally fine between them. And then that following morning, she had gone into the cave and made a complete and utter fool of herself by tripping over a rock and falling over a cliff, injuring her wrist upon landing and breaking her Kimmunicator. Shego had rescued her, unknowingly making her feel even worse than she had already felt since Shego had not wanted to sleep with her the night before.

Kim was speechless for a few seconds and after that all she could manage to ask was "why?" It was all she could get her brain to articulate. She was terribly curious as to why Shego would bring her back.

"When we first came here and you dragged me to see these stupid caves, you said something amazing happened to people if they stood in front of the caves long enough. You took my hand and held it tight, stating that if something amazing did happen, you wanted it to happen to the both of us. You looked so happy and I didn't want to burst you bubble, so I just stood there quietly, not even telling you how great it felt to hear you say such simple words and do something so normal like hold my hand. And then, later that night, I ruined your happiness. I busted your bubble anyway," Shego explained in a bit of a sorrowful and shamed tone.

The older woman thought back to that night and how she had pretty much teased Kim in such a cruel manner. Had she had the courage to just go through with what they both wanted and needed, it would have saved them so much agony. She felt like such an idiotic coward for always pulling away when she was supposed to hold firm.

"You didn't—" Kim tried to object, but Shego would not hear it. The pale woman knew what she had done, after all.

"I did. I know I did, Princess. I messed up big on that whole trip. I don't want that to be your memories of this place, though. This is a great island, so you deserve some great memories. We are going to do everything and anything that you want to do. I'll even go in this filthy, smelly damn cave with you," Shego stated.

"Really?" Kim practically squealed.

"Yes, really," Shego answered with a smile.

"Then let's go!" Kim cheered and she tugged her wife into the cavern.

Shego silently cursed. She had hoped that Kim would not want to go back into the cave, but she supposed that it was the right thing to do. Kim should replace the memories of falling in the grotto and having to wait for someone to save her with what should have happened that first time. Shego should have gone in there with her and just watched how happy it made the redhead. She was definitely going to do that now.

They entered the cave cautiously, recalling the slopes that lay beneath them up ahead. Shego lit the area for them using her hand. They walked around the place; Kim looked around excitedly while Shego looked around in disgust. They wandered down the steep slant of rock that Kim had so carelessly fallen down before. They stood by the edge of the cliff that Kim had gone over. They looked down in the abyss, spying the ledge that Kim had landed on before.

"You know, when you came and saved me that day…" Kim started, but she trailed off.

Shego nodded. "Uh-huh."

"I actually resented it," the hero admitted and it seemed kind of random for her to say such a thing.

"You resented it?" Shego echoed in disbelief. How could her monster resent the fact that she came for her? She was supposed to be there for Kim when the younger female needed her.

"I was so frustrated with everything and then I did this stupid thing and fell down there like I was some kind of idiot and I figured that was how you looked at me, like some helpless moron that needed you to hold her hand to make sure she didn't hurt herself. And then you came…and you teased me about what happened. I just felt more and more pathetic and I was so certain that when you looked at me all you saw was some idiot kid that couldn't be trusted on her own and that was all you'd ever see," Kim explained.

"I'm sorry, Pumpkin. I never meant to make you feel that way," Shego apologized wholeheartedly while throwing in an embrace around her spouse's shoulders to drive him the apology. She had not meant anything by her teasing back then. It was just how she was and she thought that Kim knew that, but she guessed that even with Kim being aware of how she behaved, since the younger woman had already been in some distress, she probably should have curbed her habits a bit.

"I know, but it seemed like nothing was going my way that trip," the redhead commented.

"Well," Shego said as she turned to face her petite spouse. "Everything is going to go your way this trip. You name it and we will do it. We can go scuba-diving, parasailing, swimming with sharks even if that's what you want. No matter how insane, this is all about you."

"All about me…" Kim echoed and a wicked smirk crept onto her face like floating evil. "I want to go to our hotel room and never leave," she stated.

Shego smirked too. "I was so hoping that you'd say that."

"I figured you were."

The couple exited the cave and returned to their hotel room. Kim was amazed to see that they had the same room from before. It seemed like Shego was not kidding when talking about replacing her old memories with new and better ones. But, it was odd because being inside of the room just made her think of back when she had been so close yet so far away. A hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach let her know that she feared such a thing happening again, like at that very moment.

What if Shego suddenly realized that she really did not want her, Kim thought with dread. Her heart began to beat rapidly and she suddenly felt anxious. She tried to assure herself that nothing like that was going to happen. Of course Shego wanted her. She had proposed twice for crying out loud and found a beautiful place for them to be legally married. She had planned a honeymoon to try to set things right in the past, so there was no reason to be frightened, Kim told herself.

"Are you okay?" Shego asked because she could tell just from the way the redhead was standing that something was bothering her.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I'm fine," Kim lied while silently ordering her heart to beat normally. The organ was not listening.

"No, you're not. You should know better than to lie to me by now, Pumpkin," Shego pointed out while standing in front of Kim.

"It's nothing. Just a silly thought," the redhead insisted and then she forced out a smile. It was a silly thought, she told herself. It was only a silly thought.

"Then tell me what it was," the super-powered officer pressed.

"It was nothing," the slender hero insisted and she changed the subject by ambushing Shego with a kiss.

The pale woman accepted the passionate show of affection and returned it with her own fire. Kim began reaching for Shego's shirt, proving to herself that there was nothing to worry about. It was just a silly notion to even consider that Shego did not want her. And then, Shego suddenly pulled away.

"Hold on," the green-skinned female said while breathing heavily.

"What?" Kim asked, hiding the fear that was crawling out of the woodworks in her body. Okay, what if it was not such a silly thought? What if Shego was about to slam her with the news right now that she did not want her anymore?

"More surprises, babe. So, could you make yourself busy for about fifteen minutes?" Shego requested.

"Um…okay. I guess I'll take a shower. Where'd you put my stuff?"

"I'll get your bag for you. You just be a good munchkin and stay out of sight for fifteen minutes, okay?"

The olive-eyed scientist nodded, now curious as to what her new spouse was doing. She went into the bathroom and started the shower water. Moments later Shego opened the door and placed Kim's bag in there for her.

"Thanks," the redhead said.

"No problem. Don't put on anything too elaborate," Shego replied and she shut the door.

Kim sighed and wondered what was going on. Why was she suddenly having such an irrational fear of being discarded suddenly? Shego had kept her through all kinds of insanity, she reminded herself. So, why would Shego drop her after they made it through so much and they had just gotten married? She did not have the answer because she could not figure out a reason for Shego doing something so random, but that did not ease the churning in her stomach.

She tried to calm down as she hopped in the shower. Still, she ended up trembling and breathing heavily. She had to lean against the wall to support herself for a few minutes. She did not stay in there for too long because of the way that she was feeling and the shower's warm water was not calming her down in any way. She washed up and then wrapped herself in a towel. She then just sat in the bathroom, hoping that she would stop feeling as anxious as she did.

She rubbed her forehead and kept asking herself why she was feeling as she was. It just did not make any sense. She was on her honeymoon. She should feel as if the world belonged to her. Instead, she felt as if she was being set up to have pig's blood poured on her at the prom (1). A knock at the door threw off her thoughts.

"You coming out, Princess?" Shego asked from outside.

"Huh?" Kim said as her head snapped up from the sound of her love's voice.

"You coming out?" Shego repeated. She thought that something might have happened because Kim had been in there for a half-hour, even though the redhead had failed to notice that.

"Oh…um…I need to get dressed," the younger woman answered.

"No, don't even bother."

"Huh?"

"Don't bother. Come on out."

Kim gulped and decided that it was now or never. Well, actually it was just now. It was not like she could hide in the bathroom for the whole trip and she would rather not do that anyway. She needed to prove to herself that her fears were unfounded. So, she got up and opened the door.

The slim adventurer was hit by a heavenly aroma of raspberry. The room was dark, except for the glow of candles all around the room. The scene should have expelled her nervousness and terror, but it did not. The butterflies in her stomach merely fluttered more than before, bubbling up a pool of horror in her gut and making her feel worse with every passing millisecond.

"You okay?" the elder female inquired when she noticed the strange look in her bride's face. She could practically see the terror in Kim's olive eyes, but she could not tell exactly what the emotion was or even what it was for. They were on their honeymoon, so she thought that her new wife should be her usual eager self. Well, actually, more eager than usual in her opinion, but she was almost somber about everything.

"Yeah," Kim lied.

"Are you sick or something?" Shego asked because she thought that would explain why her little monster appeared nervous.

"No, I'm fine. I promise."

Shego looked skeptical, but she did take Kim's word on it. She handed the redhead a glass of wine, which surprised Kim. The hero sipped from the glass while Shego grabbed her own drink, making sure to watch Kim like a predator. The stare was only stirring that horrible feeling in the redhead for some reason when it was supposed to make her feel desired.

After a couple of sips, Shego put the wine down as if it was poisonous water. She just did not care about alcohol or really anything in the room that was not Kim. She went to the smaller female and grabbed her up in her arms. Kim made a tiny yelp noise as Shego cradled her in her powerful arms. Shego was going to go in for a kiss, but Kim still had glass in her hand.

The moss-hued woman did not think anything of it. She carried her petite bride to bed, which was covered in red rose petals, and carefully placed Kim down. The redhead did not even notice the petals sprinkled over the bed because if she had, Shego knew that she would have said something about them. Instead, Kim was silent and seemed almost aloof, like she was indifferent to what was happening.

Shego could tell that Kim was worried for some reason that she could not figure out. They had already been together countless times and Kim was usually so enthusiastic and energetic about things, but she seemed damn near solemn about what was going on. It was beyond confusing. It was like Kim thought she was going to bury her in a shallow grave in a moment.

"Princess, why are you looking like that? Don't you want to do it?" Shego asked in a bemused manner. She had been hoping to get points for the set up around the room and be showered in loving kisses for her efforts, but it would seem that there something overriding what she had done and left her lover not noticing.

"I do," Kim answered honestly. Of course she wanted to make love to Shego, but her mind and body were betraying her with the stupid panic attack that she was having at the moment. She could not talk herself out of what she knew was a ridiculous idea.

"Then why are you looking so sad?" the pale woman inquired with a deep concern in her voice and she gently caressed the redhead with the hope that it would get that look out of her eyes.

"I'm not. It's just that I love you so much."

"I love you too, Pumpkin," Shego stated soundly and leaned down for a kiss.

Kim returned the kiss, tentatively at first, but she grew more and more like herself as time pressed on. She wanted it badly, to prove that she was not going to be cast aside, to prove that she was priceless to her love. She reached up, taking hold of Shego's shirt with the wish of removing the cloth. Shego helped out, especially since Kim was finally acting like herself.

Shego wiggled out of her tee-shirt and flung it to the floor. Kim quickly relieved her of her bra, which had the clasp in the front because Shego wanted it off as fast as possible. While the hero was doing that, Shego was tugging at the towel that was hiding Kim from her. They were nude in a flash and back to kissing each other with blazing hot passion.

Shego eventually left Kim's mouth to travel south. Kim hissed in a pleasure as Shego places wet kisses all over her chest. She held Shego to her, even though Shego had no plans to escape. The pale woman mapped out a path on Kim's body, leaving a trail with her tongue and dark crimson marks with her mouth where she stopped to make camp. She made her way to one rose-colored nipple with her mouth while caressing the other with a gentle hand. Her other hand wandered Kim's body, searching for flesh to fondle and having no problem finding such treasures.

Kim desired to be just as active and moved her hands from Shego's back to her front. She stroked whatever skin that she touched, which caused the raven-haired beauty to moan. The young scientist then rubbed herself against Shego, which made the older female shudder above her. She moved and met Kim's hips when they came up from the bed again, making for a scandalous kiss. They both hissed as they set a steady rhythm with those actions.

They worked up a thin layer of sweat before climaxing. Shego breathed out a long exhale as she fell to Kim's side, hoping to catch her breath. Kim wasted no time curling up next to the green-skinned woman and making herself comfortable. See, she told herself; she was worrying for nothing at all. Shego was hers, all hers, and she was Shego's and that was that. She was wanted and that thought drove her on.

"You're tired already?" the redhead asked with a devilish gleam in her eyes while her hand began to wander down Shego's body. The wonderful, beautifully tempting woman to her side was all hers, she reminded herself again.

"I'm just getting my second wind," the emerald-eyed female answered soundly. She definitely was not going to be worn out so easily, not now. She had to make everything right before she could rest. Little did she know, but she had pretty much done that with that one act.

"Well, I don't need a second wind," Kim remarked as she crawled on top of her spouse, straddling the moss-hued female.

Shego smiled a little bit. She was extremely pleased to see that Kim was finally acting like she usually did. She wished that she had gotten her points for the room, but the night was young, so Kim might still notice sometime soon, she told herself. Her smile changed as she began to moan because Kim started rocking on top of her. Was it too much to ask for Kim to at least warn her before starting up again?

The super-powered woman did not think about that too much as she exhaled again because of the growing, hot sensation building inside of her. She grabbed Kim's hips to make sure that the redhead kept up that pace. Kim did not need any help in that area now that she was going. She leaned down and started a deep kiss with Shego while making sure to keep moving. She reached between their bodies and Shego gasped when she felt the contact. Shego began to tremble and Kim knew what that meant.

The redhead broke the kiss and let Shego ride her wave of ecstasy. Kim moved on to Shego's neck and proceeded to leave her mark while still moving her hips. And then suddenly, she felt Shego touching her and she suddenly peaked, her leg shook slightly and then she fell onto Shego after a few seconds. They both were now breathing hard.

"This is going to be a long week," Shego commented.

"I hope so," Kim replied with a lecherous grin.

"You are such a freaky little monster."

"Your—" Kim started to say, but Shego cut her off.

"Yes, I know, you're _my_ freaky little monster. You certainly are that. I can top you, though," Shego boasted.

"You can top me?" Kim echoed. She scoffed in disbelief because her love had never been able to top her when it came to doing crazy things in bed.

"You don't believe me, huh? Well, we'll just see about that. When I get up, you're not going to believe what I have to show you."

"Oh, but I can't wait," Kim replied, still sporting her licentious grin. She could not wait to see what other surprises that her wife had for her on the trip. She was just glad to find out her earlier fears were as foolish as she assumed. Shego would never get rid of her. "So, you ready for another go?" she asked.

"Oh, god, let me take breath first," Shego pretended to complain. She did have a smile on her face as she spoke those words.

"Okay," the redhead agreed. She waited for Shego to take one breath and then she went in for a kiss. The plan for Kim now was to do everything to Shego that she had wanted to do the first time that they had been on the island and she wanted to do it as soon as possible.

--------------

1. It's a reference to the movie Carrie. If you haven't seen it, you should.

Also, the vacation this chapter refers to happened in The Gods Must Be Laughing chapters 5—7.

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Next time: the honeymoon comes to an end and they return home where Shego gets some surprising news from Betty.


	8. Reason Eight: Everlasting

I don't own these characters or the original premise behind this saga.

Reason Eight: Everlasting

_You've seen me bare like no one else, made me that way surprisingly enough. There is no discomfort when your green eyes gaze upon me in such a state. You always look so loving and tender and that's why I don't mind you seeing me like no one else has or will._

"You're going to kill me," Shego said to Kim as she fell back onto the pillow of their bed in the hotel. They were still on their honeymoon and so far, they were staying true to the plan of not leaving the room. They had also used a number of items that Shego had brought for the occasion to keep things interesting, which helped keep them in the room, but once Kim got going, they did not need much help.

"At least you'll go with a smile," Kim remarked as she leaned down and kissed Shego's throat, which was covered in dark splotches thanks to the eager redhead.

"But, then you'd be alone," the pale woman pointed out while reaching up to rubbed Kim's head; it was a loving touch that the younger woman enjoyed.

The petite hero pouted. "Yeah, I would," she conceded in a low tone. She then suddenly grinned. "Well, I guess I won't kill you then."

"Thanks for that," Shego said sarcastically.

The younger female just continued to grin proudly and unashamed. It was very relieving that she was acting like herself. She had Shego very nervous the first hour or so of their honeymoon because she had seemed almost depressed about things, but she had certainly perked up after they got into the one thing that Kim claimed she wanted to do for the honeymoon.

"Princess, could you be a very good lover and open the terrace doors for me?" Shego requested. She was hot and she did not want to get up. It would be a good excuse to get Kim off of her too, so she did not have to feel the added heat from the redhead and there was less of a risk that Kim would start up again.

"I can be a very good lover, but it has nothing to do with me opening the terrace doors for you," she remarked with an impish smirk on her face.

"Okay, could you just open the doors then?"

Kim smiled and nodded. She hopped off of the bed and went to the balcony doors, opening those for some air to come in for her overheating wife. There was a nice breeze blowing off the beach and Shego sighed in relief as the wind hit her body. She really needed that, she noted while closing her eyes because of how good that air felt going across her blazing hot body.

Kim quickly stepped away from the open door, even though it was dark. Hey, she was still nude and someone might actually be looking. Although, a naughty thought did pop into her mind because of standing by the balcony. She turned to Shego with a creepy looking smile on her face, which let her moss-hued spouse know that she had a terrible, but probably fun idea in mind.

"Shego, love of my life," Kim said.

"I know that look already. What's on your mind, monster?" Shego inquired.

"Let's do it on the terrace," the slender hero suggested with an excited glint in her eyes. She could not believe the thought that had been in her mind or the fact that she voiced that thought. She never would have been so bold with any other partner, but Shego was not any other partner. Shego was her loving wife.

"When you say 'it,' do you mean fuck on the terrace?" the green-skinned woman inquired to be sure. Her brain could not take any euphemisms at the moment. She was just too hot and too exhausted. She felt like she was lucky to even know who she was after everything that they had done.

Kim nodded enthusiastically. Shego did not respond at the moment. The older woman was all for trying it and she was glad that Kim suggested it just to make herself seem a little more modest than she actually was; she had shown during the trip that she was far from modest or prudish. She just was not up for doing it that very moment. She needed a break from the hours of nonstop physical pleasure. She wanted to know why Kim was so damned energetic!

"So?" the redhead pressed.

"We'll do it, but not right now. I need to cool down some," Shego answered.

"But, Shego!" Kim whined.

"Damn it, Princess, stop being so selfish," the pale woman replied. She was not being serious, but she also was not trying to move from where she was.

The slim scientist huffed. "I have a right to be selfish. You said this was for me. We're supposed to do any and everything I want to do," she argued, mostly sounding like she was whining.

"We have and will. Just give me a second," Shego stated.

The adventurer puffed out her cheeks, but her spouse paid her no mind. Kim was far from deterred and was determined to have her way in some manner. She went to the foot of the bed and crawled up onto the spread like a stalking cat. Shego knew what was coming, so she closed her legs and pulled them up in a vertical position, hoping that it would get Kim to stop.

"That's not going to work," Kim hummed as she made her way to Shego's thigh.

"You're not being fair about this, Pumpkin," the raven-haired officer said as the redhead began placing open mouth kisses on her thigh.

"I don't have to be fair. This is all for me and I get to do what I want. You said so," Kim pointed out, resting her chin on Shego's abdomen for a while.

"I know I did," the emerald-eyed woman replied.

"And you didn't lie to me, right?"

"No."

"Okay then," the slender hero said and she went back to kissing the pale green thigh.

Shego decided to resist, if only to see how much her petite wife wanted it. It would amuse her and hopefully it would burn off some of Kim's energy. Maybe they would even be able to go to sleep for the night if Kim was worn out or sated in some manner, although she was starting to believe that Kim would never get her fill.

The redhead was certainly showing that she might forsake sleep for the entire honeymoon if there was a slight chance of her being able to intimately touch Shego or have Shego touch her. She was seriously attempting to pry Shego's legs apart, but the moss-hued female had them locked together as if her limbs were glued to each other. While she was trying to pull the lower extremities apart, she kept her mouth on the right thigh. She was kissing, biting, licking, and nipping at the flesh, but it all seemed for naught.

"Why do you act like you don't want me to do it?" Kim inquired in a whisper, as if she was talking more to herself than to her new spouse.

"I just like to watch you suffer," Shego answered honestly and in a lighthearted tone. Of course, she meant light suffering and not true suffering and she had to be the one causing it. Anyone else taunting Kim within her view would end up getting wailed on in some way, shape, or form.

"This isn't as foolproof as you might think."

"I'm sure."

Shego knew that Kim was playing her game more than anything else and the younger fighter proved that. Instead of trying to rip Shego's legs open, she just reached underneath the pale woman and easily captured her goal. Shego tried to hold a moan in her throat, but the sound came out as a whimper. She kept her legs locked together, even though it was pointless now. She continued on, though because Kim was still trying to pull her legs apart.

"I'm going to win eventually," the redhead whispered with a taunting smirk on her face.

"No, I won't lose to a brat like you," the raven-haired female answered while trying to keep in another moan.

"I always win these long struggles, my love. You should know that by now," Kim commented, still whispering and still working. She was going to get her way, she silently vowed.

Shego was going to respond, but her voice got caught in her throat. She bit into her lip and closed her eyes, trying to fight off the inevitable. Her will was fading and it did not take long for Kim to be able to pry open her legs. She opened her eyes to look and see what Kim was about to do.

"Don't do it, Princess. Cut me a break," Shego actually begged while the redhead moved from her side to her interior.

"You said anything I want to do, so it's either that or you lied to me," Kim commented while kissing the center of Shego's waist. "Which is it?" the younger female inquired.

"Come on, just give me a minute."

"Which is it?" Kim repeated, not bothering to look at her spouse. Her eyes were focused on her goal.

"Just a minute…"

"Which one?" Kim pressed.

"I would…I would never lie to you," Shego answered since she knew that she was not going to get out of her current predicament. She did not really want to get out of her current mess. It was not like she was sick of Kim touching her or wanting her. She was just worn out and having a scorching hot flash. Those thoughts went out the window as Kim went in and deeply kissed her objective.

--------------

Shego was finally allotted a chance to rest. She was lying unconscious on the bed with a wonderful breeze blowing on her nude form; she was still burning hot when she had fallen asleep. Next to her was her smaller wife, who was wrapped in a sheet as if it was a protective cocoon.

Kim was not asleep. She was quietly admiring the woman that had married her. Maybe no one else could see, or at least only a hand full of people could see it, but Shego was special. And she hoped that she could make up for all of the partners that had abused and misused the green-skinned woman thorough out the years by letting her know just how special and precious she was for the rest of their lives.

There was not a day that went by that she was not thankful that Shego had found her what seemed like a lifetime ago. Sure, they had their problems like everyone else on the planet. They had their ups and downs and trials and tribulations, but they made it through and they were made stronger by everything. They were closer because of those things and she was now willing to believe that they could make it through anything.

All right, she had been admittedly frightened of something happening during the honeymoon and Shego leaving her, but it was an unfounded fear connected more to the location than to anything else. And she had worked passed that rather quickly. She was now extremely happy that Shego had picked the island as their honeymoon destination because she had plenty of fond, though kinky, memories of the place to replace the humiliating ones of their previous visit.

They had done some things that she would have never thought to suggest to Shego. It would seem that Shego was out to show that she probably could not get more comfortable around Kim because she had hit the peak of comfort and that idea came up because the pale woman had actually brought a bag full of toys that she used to swear she would never even look at. Suddenly, not only was she looking at them, but using them with earth-shattering precision. Kim could only smile as she thought about that; well, smile and blush just a little bit.

Kim moved a little closer to Shego. She was trying to give Shego some space to allow her body temperature to go down to its usual boiling point. It baffled Kim how Shego could overheat when her body temperature was already high enough to where she should technically be dead. But, hers was not to understand what a high-velocity, radio-active rainbow comet could do to someone if it did not kill the person on impact. In fact, every field of science that she was involved in had nothing to do with outer space.

She smiled ever so slightly as she stared at her green-skinned spouse. It felt so good to be able to think of Shego as her spouse, her wife and it was perfectly legal. She could practically squeal, but she controlled herself because she did not want to wake up her exhausted wife. So, she just smiled softly and stared at Shego with loving olive eyes.

From a cardboard box on the curb to a bed in a swank hotel on an island paradise, it was surreal. She guessed that out of everything that the universe did in the name of fate, the night she had been beaten up and left drugged in a box had actually been all right. Who would have thought that something so embarrassing could lead to the best thing in her life? The universe did have a very odd way of going about things.

"Princess," Shego muttered and she turned in her sleep. She reached out, trying to feel for her lover.

Kim moved over to where Shego would come into contact with her and it was clear that the green-skinned woman was no longer hot because she pulled Kim close to her. The redhead merrily curled up next to her wife and rested her head against Shego's shoulder. She then pushed herself up a bit to give Shego a kiss, even though the pale woman was still asleep for the most part. She then settled down and went to sleep herself. When she woke up, she found the sun was up as was Shego and the super-powered female was staring at her.

"Morning, sleepyhead," the older woman taunted her with the usual smirk.

"Is it morning already?" Kim yawned.

"Yup. So, what do you say I call us up some breakfast?" Shego suggested.

Kim grinned and nodded, very much in favor of that proposal. The moss-hued woman called room service and then looked around for something to cover herself in order to answer the door. She noticed the sheet that Kim was wrapped in and yanked it from the redhead. Kim made a yelp as the cloth was tugged off of her.

"What are you doing? I was using that!" the hero pointed out while reaching out for the sheet that she was not getting back and she knew that.

"Now, I'm using it," Shego commented, still wearing her teasing smirk as she wrapped the sheet around her body like it was a toga as there was a knock at the door.

"It's cold, though," Kim replied while wrapping her arms around herself.

Shego only rolled her eyes, even though she had no idea if Kim was being serious or not since she could not tell if it was cold. She doubted that the redhead was being serious since they were in the tropics. She went to the door while Kim grabbed a pillow to cover herself as she sat up. It was a good thing too because as soon as Shego opened the door, the young man that delivered their breakfast was trying to peer around her and into the room.

"Trying to see a show?" Shego inquired since she could tell that he was trying to look into their room for whatever reason.

"Um…no, ma'am," he answered. Actually, he was. Previous workers that had been up to the room informed him that the two staying there were lesbian lovers and one of them was almost always naked in the back while the other answered the door. He was hoping to see a naked female, like the other workers claimed they had.

"Good, I wouldn't want to have to kill you over something so pointless, after all," she said while slamming the door in his face. She turned her attention to her bride. "Breakfast is served."

Kim smiled and could not wait to dig in. They sat down and had breakfast together as they had been doing for the past four days. Every now and then, Kim glanced outside through the balcony doors. Shego noticed.

"You want to go outside, don't you?" the pale woman asked. She could tell by the look in the redhead's olive eyes that she just wanted to go bug out on the beach or something like that.

"Well…maybe for a couple of hours," Kim answered in a mumble. She felt weird wanting to go outside when she had Shego there and at her mercy. It was just that there was so much to do and she wanted to do just a little before retreating back to the room and continuing on with her main concern of having Shego at her mercy.

"Well, what are we going to do for those couple of hours?"

"Cliff diving," Kim answered as if that was obvious. It was something that they had not done the last time that they were at the island.

"Okay," Shego easily agreed. She had no problem with cliff diving and she would not mind a break. It was not that she was tired of making love, but she was pretty sure that she had hit her limit last night. Her body needed time to recover.

Kim grinned and they finished their food. They took a shower together upon Kim's insistence and then got dressed in some bathing suits since they were going diving. Shego took a look at herself in the mirror in the bathroom when she was ready to go and could not believe her eyes. It was apparently her first time really looking at herself since the honeymoon started.

Her pale green skin was covered in dark red marks. Her neck, chest, even her arms were sporting crimson bruises. There were a few bite marks too. She sighed and shook her head, but she was smiling about it. There was nothing she could do about it, she told herself, and she decided that she did not care if other people saw the marks on her flesh.

"You ready?" Kim asked while coming up behind her wife and wrapping her arms around Shego's waist.

"Yeah, let's go," Shego replied while reaching up and rubbing Kim's head, which made the redhead smile.

The couple left the room and went to go find a place to do some cliff diving. They did gain some attention while they were outside, mostly because they were both covered in scarlet marks and the bathing suits let the world see that. They both could care less, though. They were just going to have more marks later on anyway.

They did some cliff diving and ate some ice cream while they were out. On the way back to the hotel, they did run into a little trouble. They were taking a short cut through a back alley and ran into some street punks.

"Hey, look at what we got here, boys," one of the guys commented when he caught sight of Kim and Shego. He had toothpick in his mouth and a baseball bat on his shoulder.

"You and your short cuts," Shego grumbled, speaking to Kim since she was all too aware that things were about to get irritating.

"Oh, yeah, just blame me," the redheaded scientist muttered.

"Thank you, I will," Shego remarked.

"Well, it's a short cut when no ones here," Kim stated.

"And if someone's here, it just becomes annoying," the emerald-eyed officer pointed out.

"Hey, you two don't talk," the young man ordered the couple while aiming his bat at them.

"Shego," Kim said because she could tell that her spouse was going to do something extreme.

"No, no, no, obviously the guy wants my attention and he is being a huge dick by putting this bat in my face," the green-skinned woman replied.

"Hey!" he barked again and had the nerve to poke Shego with the bat. She grabbed the sporting tool, which was made of metal, and crushed the front end of it with her bare hand.

"What the…?" the young man gasped as he pulled the bat back to him and stared at it in disbelief.

"Yeah, so how about you be a good little boy and run home before I spank you," Shego suggested.

He growled. "I don't have to take this. Get them!" he ordered his fellow street punks. There were a dozen of them, after all. He figured that they would be able to take two women with no problem, even if one of those women seemed to have some kind of freakish strength.

The dozen other fellows attacked, six going from Kim and the other six running for Shego. The lead punk of the group went after Shego too, swinging his bent bat at her while his other friends were taking out their weapons. The couple was not frightened of the sudden, pointless battle.

Kim mostly dodged the attacks coming at her, striking only when she thought it was absolutely necessary, which was not often. With the way that she was avoiding blows, the thugs were hitting each other and angering each other because of that. After a couple of minutes, Kim was able to stand back and watch the six chaps starting to beat the brains out of each other. She glanced over to see how her wife was doing.

Shego was not into avoiding the assault and allowing the punks to just whack each other. She was dodging everything if necessary, but she was hitting back. She was taking face shots too if they gave her the opportunity, slamming almost full force into their skulls. After a couple of hits, they stopped coming back in for more.

"Oh, is that it? I thought you didn't have to take this," Shego taunted them while putting her hands down since her opponents were all lying around the alley and trying to stop the bleeding from their wounds.

"Honey, don't do that," Kim said with a playful smile.

"Princess, don't tell me what to do," Shego replied with a smile of her own.

"Who the hell are you two?" one of the battered males inquired.

"A couple on their honeymoon," Kim replied with a very bright smile. She did not care who knew what they were. She wanted everyone to know.

"So don't mess with us," Shego added.

The couple walked off, leaving the guys to think about their mistake. The pair returned to the hotel room and before Shego could even close the door, Kim was on her. The pale woman yelped as she almost fell to the floor while trying to make sure the door was closed.

----(New day)

"I don't want to go work," Shego actually whined as her alarm clock began going off and she punched the irksome device.

The honeymoon had officially ended yesterday when they flew back home. They got in late at night, but that did not really matter to them. They fell into bed together, merrily drifting to sleep. And now everything was going to have to go back to normal as the sun rose on a new day that involved having to go to work instead of staying in and going at it like rabbits.

"I don't want you to go to work either," Kim commented while snuggling into her pale spouse, cuddling her face into Shego's neck.

"Don't try to tempt me to stay with all this nice body contact," Shego muttered as she pulled Kim closer to her, rubbing her naked shoulder.

"You should call in. Wouldn't the great Doctor Director understand? After all, she was a blushing bride not too long ago," the redhead said while running her leg up and down Shego's leg.

"I don't think she's going to buy the fact that I want to stay home because we still haven't gotten all the sex out of our systems," the pale officer replied.

"But, we haven't," the petite hero pointed out.

Shego chuckled a bit. "I've got this figured out, monster."

"What?"

"You're a nymphomaniac," the pale woman stated as if it was a solid, proven fact.

"I'm a what?" the younger woman asked as if she was totally shocked to hear such news.

"You're a nymphomaniac."

Kim looked incredulous that Shego would say it twice. "I'm not a nympho. I am most certainly a Shego-maniac!" the redhead declared rather proudly. She had never been so into sex until she got to be with Shego. She had never had such ideas or deep desires until she was with Shego.

"You're a maniac if nothing else," the green-skinned woman remarked with an amused smile on her face.

"I'll be the best maniac ever if you don't go into work today. I'll even make breakfast for you," Kim tried to bargain.

"Sorry, Pumpkin. We've got to get back to our regular lives sooner or later and it might as well be sooner or it'll just be harder to do it later."

"Why are you so freaking responsible?" Kim whined and she turned to throw a little tantrum.

"Because one of us has to be," Shego pointed out and she lightly slapped the redhead on the rump to get her to cease her acting out. Kim jumped slightly and made a whimpering sound when the hit landed.

"But, I want to cuddle you, my love," the redhead purred.

"It'll have to wait until tonight. Don't you have to be at the lab today or something?"

"I've got way too much leeway at the lab," Kim commented with a laugh. She still worked at the biology lab at Go University, but she also hung out in the chemistry department now too because she was hoping to improve on her antivenin, but neither lab seemed to care when she came in or when she left, as long as she was actually doing work while she was there.

"I'm sure you do with the way you just run out to do missions and everything," Shego concurred and then a thought that never hit her before occurred to her. "Hey, Princess, this marriage, it's not going to mess up your career or anything, is it?" the green-skinned woman inquired.

"Mess up my career?" Kim echoed in a puzzled tone. She did not see how their marriage and her career linked up in any manner.

"Well…you know, being married to a woman and all. Do you think they'll care at the lab or maybe with your missions?"

"Well, first of all, I keep my private life really private. So, I don't think too many people even know my sexual preferences."

"Shego-sexual?" the raven-haired officer remarked with a smile.

"Most definitely!" Kim grinned as she latched onto her wife, embracing her tightly. "But, it shouldn't matter, love. And if people do have a problem with it if they find out, I really won't care. There'll always be jobs and there'll always be someone willing to let me help no matter who I go to bed with. Besides, if they saw you, who could blame me for being married to you!" she commented, still grinning widely, but meaning her words. Her love came before her career or missions if they were going to be affected by who she was married to.

"You know, flattery isn't going to get me to stay home," Shego pointed out.

"Damn it," Kim cursed, as if her plan had been foiled. "What do I have to do to get you to stay here?"

"Reverse time. Come on, Pumpkin. I'll make some cinnamon pancakes and even give you a ride in."

Kim pouted, but she accepted the offer. They crawled out of bed and went to return to the real world. They went through their usual morning motions and left the house. It would seem that the honeymoon truly was over, they both thought as Kim entered the lab and Shego drove off to work.

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Shego forgot that work could be so boring. She should have just called in, but she doubted that Betty would have gone for it. She had already used her vacation for the wedding and honeymoon. She had a stockpile of days, but she still preferred to save those in case she did need them.

"You know, instead of sitting there being bored, you need to catch up on your paperwork," Betty commented as she came to Shego's desk and flopped down a huge stack of paperwork for the super-powered woman.

"Holy shit," Shego commented with an incredulous look on her face.

"Yeah, you should've handled it before you left."

"I wasn't talking about the paperwork. I'm talking about you," the employee commented as she finally had a chance to stare at her friend without having a trillion things on her mind.

"Me?" Betty echoed.

"You've put on weight. What the fuck?" Shego inquired. Her best friend and boss look like she ate a cow for breakfast in her opinion; her opinion was exaggerating. But, it was obvious that Betty had put on some weight.

"You've got no damn tact at all," the one-eyed woman commented with a sigh. It was a good thing that she was not sensitive about anything, except her eye anyway. She had not put on much weight, but she was glad that Shego finally noticed.

"I know I don't. What the hell happened to you?"

Betty smiled. "Well, you tend to put on weight when you're pregnant."

Shego's mouth just fell open. She had been expecting a lot of answers, but not that one. What the hell was Betty Director doing pregnant? How was she supposed to respond to that?

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Next time: a discussion on the information that Shego has just learned.


	9. Reason Nine: Bun in the oven

I don't own these characters and I don't own the original premise behind this saga.

Reason Nine: Bun in the oven

_To be there for you and grant your desires makes me feel right. I wish I could give you all you want and desire. If only we knew you had such wants and desires._

Shego was still incredulous to what she was hearing and it showed on her face. Betty looked amused by her friend's expression. She had desired to tell Shego the news since she found out, but the pale woman had been so worked up about her wedding that Betty just figured that it would be best to wait.

Shego was trying to figure out what she wanted to ask first now that she knew why her oldest friend was putting on weight. Did she want to know how many months or how long Betty knew or if she told anyone else yet? There seemed to be a million questions to ask and she just could not figure out where to begin. It did not help that she had never been in such a situation before, not having any other friends to run into such a predicament.

"Save it for later. We'll go to lunch together since it's so slow around here today," the boss told her friend.

The pale woman could only nod to agree with that plan. Maybe by lunchtime she would know the questions that she wished to ask and she could get her mind straight enough to make those inquiries. She turned her attention to the huge stack of paperwork that Betty had brought over to her desk. The one-eyed woman then walked away to go handle her other business. They did get together for lunch was they had agreed. They went to the usual café down the street from the headquarters.

"So…pregnant, huh?" Shego said before anything else. She was just so shocked by the news that it was all she could muster.

"Indeed," Betty replied, trying to contain herself. She had wanted to share the news with Shego for so long now. Too long, in her opinion. Hey, Shego was her best friend and they had always shared everything, good, bad, or whatever. Sometimes, the news just took a longer time than others.

"How long have you been pregnant?" the pale woman inquired.

The chief thought on it for a moment. "Um…four months."

"Four months? And you're only telling me now?" the raven-haired officer inquired incredulously. Four months was like a lifetime for Betty to keep something from her in her opinion. Of course, she had kept things from Betty much longer than that through out their lives, but that was her.

"Well, I only found out last month because I had been so busy it took me a while to notice something was a little off. I would've told you then, but you were busy with the wedding and everything. It was your moment," Betty pointed out.

Shego nodded. It had been her moment and she was glad that she did not have to share it, so it was good that Betty had kept the news to herself. She accidentally smiled a bit, a grateful expression that her friend noticed and recognized. It would seem that she had done the right thing, the older woman noted. It was good to know that she had made the right decision in waiting.

"Are you happy about that?" Shego asked curiously. She could not picture Betty all fat and pregnant and happy about it. It seemed so unlike the brown-haired woman.

"Yeah," Betty said in a low tone while rubbing her slightly swollen abdomen. "I never thought about having kids, but now that I know I'm going to have one, it's all I can think about. Who is this I'm carrying? What will this person look like? How is this person going to act?"

"I think you're a little ahead of yourself, Bets. It's just a bump in your stomach right now," the emerald-eyed officer pointed out.

The one-eyed woman smiled softly; it was clear that she could not get any happier with her condition and nothing that her friend said was going to change her mood it seemed. "I know, but I'm still very curious. I wonder about me and Dahntay as parents, although I already know I'm going to have to be the stern one," she commented.

"Yeah, I can see Falsetto spoiling his kids like he spoils you."

"Hey, don't call him that. He's out of that life and doesn't go by that name anymore. And he doesn't spoil me," Betty argued.

"Bets, the man got you a wedding ring with a diamond on it that was the size of your dog's head. You can't even wear the damn thing because you can't lift it. That's spoiled. That's like the definition of spoiled," Shego countered.

"You know what, you're the last person to say anything about spoiling people. Look at what you did to your brats."

"They're not spoiled," the green-skinned officer retorted in a slightly offended tone. Okay, they were spoiled and it was her fault, but she did not like having it pointed out so blatantly.

"Yeah, they're not spoiled. You keep telling yourself that, but we both know what happens when you lie to yourself," the chief taunted her friend.

"Screw you. That's why you're not going to be able to see your feet in a few months."

"I don't care. I want to have this baby, so you can't bring my mood down no matter what you say."

Shego did not miss a beat to prove that one wrong. She said just about the worst thing possible in the most casual tone a person could use. "You're going to turn into your mother."

Betty's entire expression fell. "Take that back or I'll shove this fucking fork in your throat," she threatened her employee. She seemed quite serious about it too and if anyone that heard the threat, they probably would have called the police just because of the one-eyed woman's tone alone.

"I don't take things back," the younger woman declared in a cocky tone, daring her boss to fulfill that threat.

"Do you really think I'll turn into my mother?" Betty asked in a panic. Oh, god, what if she did? What if she set such high standards that she left her baby believing that nothing would ever be good enough to please her? She would be just horrible. She would feel like the worst woman that ever existed.

"Calm down, Bets. Breathe deep. I just said that to piss you off. You're not going to turn into your mother. I mean, look at me, I've got Smiley and I haven't turned into my mother, have I?" Shego pointed out.

"Well, you were already sort of like her," the boss replied honestly and maybe even with a little spite.

"Okay, you know what, go to Hell and wave 'hi' to your mom when you get there," the younger woman stated.

Betty felt a little better about herself now that she was able to get Shego back for making her think that she might turn into her mother. She rubbed her abdomen again and silently vowed to cherish and protect whoever it was growing inside of her. She would never make her baby feel as useless and worthless as her mother made her feel. She would do her best as a mother and she would always be proud of her baby no matter what.

"Shego, now that you're married, you think you're ready for a full-time family?" Betty asked curiously.

"Whoa, I only just got married. Besides, I don't think Pumpkin could impregnate me no matter how hard she wishes on a star for it to happen," the green-skinned officer answered with a bit of a laugh.

The one-eyed woman laughed a bit. "Well, you're pretty manly, you should impregnate her," she remarked.

"I would if I could," Shego muttered by accident. She had not thought that one out before she allowed it to pass her lips.

Betty was hardly surprised by admission, so her expression did not change when the words sneaked out. She actually wished that Shego or Kim could impregnate the other. She saw them with Todd and she knew that they would thoroughly enjoy having a child of their own flesh and blood. It would be utterly fascinating to watch the strange pair raise their own child and she supposed that it would be nice for them to raise a third generation of Directors and Goodings to hang out together.

"You know, there are options," Betty found herself stating.

"You're getting ahead of us, Bets. And we have Smiley to take care of," Shego replied in an oddly serious tone.

The pale woman looked away for a moment. Yes, they had Todd, sometimes. It would be quite a thing if only she and Kim could have their own child. Would she look as evidently and disgustingly happy as Betty? She supposed that she would never know because unless there was some huge leap in science where they suddenly cared about figuring out how to get a woman to impregnate another woman, she and Kim would never have their own flesh and blood child like Betty was having with Dahntay.

"What do you think I should name the kid?" Betty inquired, interrupting her friend's thoughts. She was very interested in her child and she wanted to talk about the baby now. It was her moment.

"Betty junior," Shego remarked.

"Like hell. I'm definitely dropping this thing with females carrying "el" in front of their names," the one-eyed woman commented. She was not sure who started that or thought it was cute in her family, but it was ending if she had a daughter.

Betty thought that her family was just as bad as Shego's family when it came to naming girls. Where in Shego's family, the eldest girl always had to be named "Isabella" for some bizarre reason, in her family, every girl's name had to begin with "el" and it was an old tradition. Her grandmother had been named Eliza, her great-grandmother was Elaine, her great-great grandmother had been Elena, and so forth and so on. She had signaled that she was ending it when she was able to comprehend that naming sickness by deciding to go by "Betty."

"So, you're going to help me or what? You are pretty much going to be an auntie in about five months," the chief pointed out in a taunting tone.

"I'm only good at nicknames. When the little unholy lizard is born, we can talk," Shego remarked.

"You are so goddamn useless. Fine, don't help. Dahntay and I will figure it out on our own. We'll give you a perfect name," Betty said to her growing child while caressing the knot in her stomach.

"Yeah, perfectly dreadful. Run while you have the chance to, kid," Shego joked.

Betty only gave Shego a biting look and then they ordered lunch. The conversation remained on baby talk because Betty was taking it as her moment. She was so excited about being pregnant and even though Shego was being her usual bitchy self, she was very happy for her friend.

--------------

Kim was knocked out on the sofa, mouth wide open, arm hanging off the side, looking like a corpse. Shego was staring down at her petite wife. She gathered that Kim had gone on a mission because work at a lab could not be so exhausting. How much leeway did that lab really give her to just let her skip out any time that she felt like it to go run around the world to save people? She supposed that the lab and the school were just pleased to have _the_ Kim Possible working and attending class there that they would let her do anything.

Shego leaned down and lightly touched Kim's exposed abdomen; the redhead was wearing some house clothes, which consisted of a torn tank-top and pajama pants. What if she could do to Kim what Dahntay had done to Betty? Would Kim be as elated to carry her child as Betty seemed to be to carry Dahntay's? They seemed like such stupid things to wonder since she would never be able to do such a thing.

She decided to stop thinking about it and she left Kim to her nap. It was foolish to think such things, she told herself as she went to take a shower. She would never be able to give Kim a child. Hell, she did not even know if Kim wanted children, although from the way that Kim acted with Todd, it seemed pretty obvious that she would not mind having kids. Shego was not even sure if she wanted children.

Yes, she liked having Todd and raising him up, but she considered that it might be because it was not a full-time thing. Did she really want a child or maybe even more around the house every second of every day? She had always sworn that she would never have children because she found them annoying for the most part. She could hardly stand going out to places such as the supermarket or something like that because she knew that she was going to see some kid being a brat and acting out and the only thought going through her mind was always that the mother needed to slap the kid to straighten the brat out, but the mother never followed her unvoiced advice.

Shego knew that she could not blame them because she could not hit Todd, no matter how much he acted out in public. She did at least yell at him, though, which was more than she could say of many mothers that she had seen in the street. She justified it to herself by telling herself that she did not smack the crap out of Todd when he began being wild because she did not want to traumatize the boy anymore than he was since his biological parents were doing such a great job of screwing with his mind. She really had no desire to add to that.

She wondered if she would be able to raise her hand to her own child, like her mother used to do to her and her brothers. She guessed that it would have to depend on the situation. She knew that her mother picked her spots when Isabel would wail on her or her brothers when they were younger, but that also could have been due to the fact that her mother was not around as much as she knew she would be around if she had offspring. She was pretty sure that she and her brothers would be much worse than they were if it had not been for those occasional wailings.

But, could she occasionally wail on her own child? She considered that it would not be fair of her to hit the one kid and not knock Todd around with all of his antics. The other child would probably think that it was something personal and figure that something was wrong with him or her. Shego did not want to screw up her own kid like that.

And then, she thought about how it was not just her in the house. She was with Kim, so she could have to figure in Kim's role as a parent too. Watching Kim with Todd when they were in the house gave her the idea that Kim would make a fine mother. She was always spending time with Todd and was always teaching him constantly about almost everything. Outside was a different story.

The redheaded hero allowed Todd to run wild when he was outside and Shego was pretty sure that it was Kim that encouraged his outrageous behavior more often than not. She just seemed to let him do whatever came to mind as long as he was not about to get hurt or he was not about to hurt anyone. Shego supposed that it had to do with the fact that it was hard, if not impossible, to shame Kim. Kim did not get embarrassed and so, she did not mind much of the things that Todd did when people were watching.

Would they be able to raise a kid from scratch? After all, they had a foundation with Todd. A crappy foundation granted, but they knew what they were working with for the most part. They knew that they had to rebuild his self-esteem and get him to understand that he was not worthless like his biological parents made him seem. They had to bandage and heal the emotional and psychological wounds that the boy carried, but she was fairly certain that they would not even have to worry about such problems if they had their own child. They would love their own child from the start and make sure that their kid knew just how fantastic the kid was.

"Just stop thinking about it," Shego told herself.

The pale woman took her shower and threw on some house clothes. She went back downstairs and joined Kim on the sofa. Kim was still knocked out, which Shego expected. She picked Kim's head up and laid her head in her lap. She then turned on the television and watched for a while before the redhead began to stir.

"Hey," Kim said in a groggy tone as she turned and snuggled her face into Shego's abdomen.

"Hey to you," the older woman replied while stroking her spouse's exposed shoulder. "Rough day?" she inquired.

"I had to go to Egypt and track down some thieves that stole a whole mummy from the museum in Cairo."

"A mummy? What the fuck were they going to do with a whole mummy?" Shego asked curiously. She guessed that if they worked hard, they would be able to find a buyer for it, but still, it seemed odd for them to steal a mummy.

"Hell if I know. I had to go through the desert to catch up with them and I am wiped out thanks to that. The desert is hot," the hero commented, as if that was not a known fact.

"Gee, you don't say?" Shego asked sarcastically.

"Don't be mad because my day was exciting. How was your day?"

"It was pretty exciting too. I found out that Betty's pregnant," the emerald-eyed officer reported as if that was normal information.

Kim choked on air and she had to sit up for that one. She looked at Shego with an incredulous expression, which got her bopped on the head. The redhead cried out as if she had been shot and threw her hands on top of her head.

"Domestic violence!" Kim shouted with an exaggerated distressed expression.

"Stop being such a baby and don't look like that anymore. You make it seem like it's impossible for Betty to be pregnant," Shego said, which was why she hit the redhead. She was insulted for her best friend.

"Well, I thought she was menopausal."

"She's not that old! She's only three years older than I am," the green-skinned female huffed and she bopped her wife again. Now she was insulted because it seemed like her wife was making her and her friend seem old.

"Ah! Why do you keep hitting me?" Kim wailed, making sure to look close to tears because of a pair of hits that hardly hurt at all.

"Because you're a bad little monster. You should be happy for her."

"I am happy for her! You didn't let me get to that part because you kept hitting me!" the olive-eyed scientist replied.

"Well, it didn't seem like you were getting to that part," Shego defended her actions.

"I was going to say how awesome it is for her to be having a baby. That is totally spanking," Kim insisted, not sure what else she should say.

Shego looked at Kim, as if she was expecting more. The moss-hued woman was waiting to see if her spouse had more to add, but Kim was done. She thought that it was great for Betty to be having a baby and she had expressed that. She flopped back down into Shego's lap, curling back into the pale woman's stomach.

The emerald-eyed woman was a little surprised that Kim did not say anything more. It would seem that children were not on Kim's mind. Shego was not sure why, but that upset her a bit. She moved Kim's head and got up from the sofa.

"Hey, where're you going?" the younger female called while watching Shego go in the direction the kitchen.

The pale woman did not answer as she entered the kitchen. The redhead pouted, knowing that she had done something to chase her love away, but she could not figure out what she had done. She had already taken blows for her remarks about Betty, so what else had she done? She rubbed her forehead and got up from sofa.

The scientist walked into the kitchen to find Shego sitting at the small table that they had against the wall. Kim studied her green-skinned spouse for a moment, wondering what she had done that was wrong to bother Shego. And she knew that Shego was bothered because of the intense look on her face; it was like she was attempting to burn a hole in the poor table with her gaze.

Kim then marched over to Shego and just sat in the older woman's lap instead of sitting across from her. She turned to straddle Shego's waist as best she could and she clamped her legs around her green-skinned mate. She then put her arms around Shego's neck.

"What are you doing?" the raven-haired female inquired.

"I'm guessing being a bad Kimmie, but I guess it doesn't matter since I did something bad anyway. What did I do, though?" the redhead asked.

"You didn't do anything," Shego answered, placing a hand on Kim's back to make sure that she did not fall over, even though the table was there to keep her from going too far or hurting herself.

"But, you left. Come on, tell me what I did. Please." Kim leaned in for a little peck on Shego's tempting lips, hoping to coax the story from her spouse with affection.

"It's nothing, munchkin."

"So, how come you left me to sit in here alone? You should know by now that you can tell me anything, especially if I did something wrong. I don't want to upset you," the redhead pointed out and she gave Shego a peck again, a little longer that time.

"Well…" The super-powered female took a breath. "Have you ever considered having children?" she inquired.

Kim thought about it. "I guess I have in a way, but nothing too serious. Why, you want children now?" the redhead countered.

As soon as that question came out of her mouth, Kim began thinking about what Shego had thought about earlier, if only one of them could impregnate the other. It would be fabulous, she thought. They would be able to have a family together with a child that shared their blood.

"I was just thinking about it, that's all," Shego answered.

"Well, it's something we could plan for once we're sure we want kids and we can take care of a kid. That would be best, right?" Kim asked.

"It would. I was just thinking about it, that's all."

"For the record, if it was possible, I would so carry your children," Kim commented, as if she knew that would get her out of trouble. She was telling the truth, though. If she could, she would carry as many kids as Shego would throw at her.

Shego smiled a little bit. It was wonderful to know that Kim would carry her children if she could. If only she had been born a male, like her father probably wanted, Shego thought. She would have been able to have children with Kim, she thought, as reached her other hand out and ran a finger across Kim's abdomen.

"We would've created some pretty amazing kids," Shego muttered, more to herself than to her mate.

"Yeah," the petite hero concurred. They would have had some kick-ass offspring if only they were able to. Too bad kids were not actually magically delivered by a stork or born in some cabbage patch because if that were the case, they would have been able to have their own child. But, alas, that was not how things were.

"Maybe we should talk about this some other time. After all, we've only just gotten married and everything," Shego pointed out.

"Yeah. Let's just enjoy that for a second," Kim agreed with a grin.

"You've got something in mind?" the pale woman inquired as if she did not know.

The redhead leaned in for a slow, deep, passionate kiss. Shego returned the show of affection with just as much fervor. They figured that it would be best to just enjoy what they had and worry about other matters later on. They had time to consider what to do with their lives.

The thought of kids did not leave their minds, though. After all, as time went by, Betty only began to show her condition all the more and Shego had to watch her friend grow larger with every passing day. And she was plagued by thoughts of "if only I was born a male."

Shego wished that she would have been able to give Kim children, but she accepted who and what she was. Kim loved her no matter what, so it was not as much as issue as her mind was trying to push it as. Besides, Kim had admitted to not knowing if she was ready for children anyway. Shego often had to remind herself that she and Kim were at two different points in life because she was seven years older than Kim. The redhead was still looking to establish herself in a way and still trying to get herself together.

As far as Shego was concerned, she was established and she was together. Maybe that was why she was thinking of kids much more than her spouse was thinking about them. She could not figure out why it remained on her mind. Maybe it was just because she was getting older, she considered. Something about her biological clock or something other b.s like that, her mind commented.

She felt a bit silly thinking about children when Kim was not truly considering them yet. It seemed…wimpy. There was something about the concept of parenthood that just seemed against her nature, Shego thought, but now that it was in her face, it was on her mind almost constantly.

When she sat with Kim, she often rubbed Kim's stomach now instead of her head. The redhead noticed, but she never said anything because she could guess what was on her wife's mind. Whenever Shego touched her belly though, she wished that she could somehow give Shego what she wanted.

If it was possible, Kim really would have carried Shego's child and she was certain that she would have enjoyed every second of it. Unfortunately, there was no way for that to happen. Kim wondered if there was someway to fill the void that seemed to be opening up in her spouse. Nothing came to mind, though.

--------------

Next time: more baby stuff. Yori has news for the crew and Kim and Shego make a decision on if they're ready for kids.


	10. Reason Ten: Consideration

I don't own these characters and I don't own the original premise that this saga is based on.

Reason Ten: Consideration

_If only you could put in half and I could put in half. We'd make a whole and it would be ingenious. Will we still be able to make due without such brilliance?_

It seemed like no matter what Kim could not escape the notion of children shadowing her like a needy phantom. She could see Shego thinking about them having children constantly because the idea stared Shego in the face daily with her working with Betty, who was showing her condition by now. So, Shego was always thinking about kids and even though she never voiced her thoughts on children, Kim already knew what the pale woman wanted.

Kim knew because Shego had gotten into the habit of caressing her stomach instead of her head when they relaxed together. It was not really interfering in their lives, but Kim was thinking about it more and more. She would have blamed it on the fact that Todd was about to come stay with them for the summer soon, but that was not it. Todd being around never made her think about having her own child; mostly, because she did look at Todd as their child. It was the fact that Ron and Yori announced that they were having a baby.

She was naturally happy for her friends. She was a bit surprised that they waited so long, but they felt it was a good time start since Ron had finally gotten his restaurant up and going. It was a fine restaurant with Ron handling most of the cooking, but he figured when it really took off, then he would hire a few more chefs, but he still planned to do some cooking even then. The couple had waited because they wanted to see if their lives were suitable for kids and they decided that it was, so now Yori was pregnant with their first "Jewpanese" child; yeah, Ron was still using that phrase despite the fact that he had sworn that his parents killed it.

Kim felt a bit closed in and had to check to make sure she was not the only person on the planet not having a kid. Monique was with her and not pregnant. Monique made the comment that they always let Ron and Yori test the relationship waters before following in. Kim then felt it necessary to point out, with a friendly grin, that that would explain why they were all likely to drown one day.

"Wow, we are growing up, huh?" Monique pointed out. Their usual crew of misfits were lounging around Felix and Monique's apartment, actually trying to do something easygoing for just about the first time in their collective memory. She and Felix were lying on the sofa and he was trying to eat the whole bag of ranch-flavored tortilla chips because he knew that if he did not, they would sit in the kitchen and go stale; well, that was how he justified his actions anyway.

"Yeah, people having babies and everything," Kim concurred from her space on the floor. She was halfway certain that she had too much soda and she was only halfway because only her left arm was twitching as if she was nervous. The caffeine wanted her to get up and do something, but her body was not obeying in the slightest, having found its purpose for the day in being totally inanimate for once.

"Hey, you had a kid first," Ron argued in a friendly tone from the loveseat where he was curled up with Yori.

"Indeed you did," Yori chimed in with a nod to go along with her words.

"Smiley doesn't count," the redhead stated.

"How doesn't he count? He's a six-year-old kid and he's yours most weekends, holidays, and vacations," Ron pointed out.

"He's got you there, Kim," Felix jumped in.

"Okay, fine, so I had a kid first if we count Smiley, but you two are the first to have a baby," Kim countered.

"And now she's got you two," Monique commented.

"Why are we even having this conversation? So, we're having a baby and it is great, but what are you two planning for Yori's baby shower?" Ron asked.

"You just ask that because you want to know what kind of food is going to be involved," Monique teased.

"So what if I do?" the blonde replied with a mocking smile.

"Then you should cater it, doy," Kim answered.

"Brilliant! Well, that's settled. Babe, I'm catering your baby shower," Ron declared soundly.

"We don't have to think on this right now. I mean, the baby's not due for how many months?" Monique asked Yori.

"About six months," Yori reported with a smile. She could not help smiling every time that she spoke of the baby or when she was due. She was looking forward to building a family with Ron and he seemed so excited to be a father. He had been more anxious than she had been when they went to the doctor to confirm her suspicions and he had cheered so loudly that the whole building heard him when he found out that she was pregnant.

"Just think in six months, we'll have another Ron on our hands," Felix commented with a bit of a laugh and a half-smile.

"Hey, she could have a girl," Monique pointed out.

"So? She'll still be Ron in a dress…which is a disturbing thought in and of itself," the brown-haired male remarked with a laugh.

"Horrible mental image thank you very much," Kim joked with a teasing smile on her face.

"Hey, down there, stop picturing me in a dress," Ron playfully threatened Kim, shaking his fist at her while speaking.

"It's Felix's fault! He said it," the olive-eyed herpetologist laughed while pointing at the aforementioned scientist.

"A Possible should have better self-control than that," Felix taunted her.

"You guys are all awful. If I wanted this kind of abuse, I'd just go home," Kim remarked.

"Hey, you know, why didn't Shego come along with you? You still seem like the odd man out most of the time when we get together," Monique commented with an elegant eyebrow arched in curiosity.

"When I told her I was coming to hang out with you guys at the apartment, she was busy being dragged down the street by a city bus and trying to capture some octopus monster, so she wasn't really listening to me," Kim answered as if that was no big deal.

"Why didn't you go help out? You always leave your sweetheart to such terrible fates," Felix noted. It seemed like every time they thought that they could all hang out as couples and everything, Shego was getting held up thanks to some outrageous crime in Go City and Kim just left her to that. Anyone else, Kim would have been gone before they finished the story, but she never went to assist her beloved. He did not understand that.

"She doesn't want my help," Kim answered while playing with the straw in her drink, which was more soda. She would love nothing more than to be out there, making her sure that her beloved did get out of every assignment that she took without a scratch marring her wonderful form, but Shego did not want that.

"Doesn't this date back to when she thought you were on the same level of intelligence as a box of oatmeal, though?" Monique asked. She would have thought that Shego let go of the philosophy of Kim not doing anything now that she respected the redhead as an equal and knew that Kim was a genius in many, many fields.

"It does," Kim answered. Her not helping did go back to when Shego was afraid that she might kill herself operating the toaster, but now it had more to do with concerns for her safety and Shego's pride.

"Well, why are you two still using such an outdated mandate?" Felix asked with a puzzled expression on his face.

"How do you hold normal conversations with him using words like 'mandate'?" Kim inquired, teasing Felix by asking his wife that question.

"Hey, I just live with him," Monique joked, holding her hands up as if she was surrendering.

"Okay, no seriously, why are you two still using rules from when you were a pet?" the blue-eyed scientist asked.

"It's not about it being a rule from me being a pet. Shego worries easily about me and if I charged in to help her, she'd end up focusing on me and not her job. Besides, it's her job, not mine. She likes her job and I don't want to butt in. Everyone has to have their space and that's her space. She doesn't need me around all the time," Kim explained.

"Really? Shit, I wish I had Mo around all the time," Felix commented and he was being sincere about that. He just liked being around his spouse and talking to her and simple things like that.

"Only so you'll have someone to go to the store for you, you lazy bum," Monique lightheartedly teased.

"That I am," Felix concurred with a smile.

"Do you see what I have to put up with?" Monique continued on.

"Like you're not loving every second of it," Ron commented, dismissing it all with a wave of his hand.

"That's beside the point," she argued with a smile.

"Weren't we watching a movie a long time ago?" Kim asked with a laugh.

Yori jumped back into the conversation. "Were we?" she inquired as if she had truly forgot what they were doing before the conversation came up.

They all laughed. They had been watching a movie that went off a while ago and they failed to notice because they were having a good time just talking with each other. They decided to play a trivia game since they seemed to be in such playful moods. They left rather late at night.

When Kim went home, she expected to find Shego in bed, which she was. The redhead showered and crawled into bed, curling up close to her spouse. Shego was still awake and gathered Kim in her arms as soon as the hero was lying next to her.

"So, how went the giant octopus thing?" Kim inquired curiously. One could not help wondering about how battling a monster mollusk went, even if she had fought one herself years back.

"Disgusting. Don't even ask," Shego answered. She just wanted to forget that her horrid day even took place. "Sorry I couldn't make it," she apologized, which was rare for her. She just felt kind of bad because she never seemed to be able to make it any of Kim's gatherings with her friends.

"It's cool. We didn't do anything except goof off as usual. We did find out something pretty interesting."

"What?" the pale woman asked in a curious tone.

"Yori's pregnant," Kim reported.

"You mean to tell me she's actually going to reproduce with that garbage disposal she calls a husband?"

"Stop being mean to Ron," the redhead reprimanded her spouse.

"But, it's so easy!" Shego replied, as if she was being serious. It was easy for her to be mean toward plenty of people, though.

"And you swear that I'm the bad one," Kim commented.

"You are. You're very bad. So, your friend is pregnant. That's good…that's real good," Shego said in a slightly distant voice.

The pale woman's hand seemed to move automatically to Kim's belly. The redhead put her hand on Shego's, which surprised the green-skinned woman. Kim held the hand to her; it was her first time doing such a thing in all of the months that Shego had been caressing her abdomen instead of her scalp.

"You know, Ron and Yori waited to have a kid to make sure that they knew they would have time for a baby and that their lives wouldn't be disrupted and would fit a child in. Thinking about it that way, maybe we should consider it too," Kim admitted and the hand underneath hers flexed slightly.

"Wait…you want kids now?" the super-powered female asked to make sure she was sure of what she was hearing.

"I'm open to the idea. I mean, our lives have been pretty much the same…in a way…for a couple of years now. You're where you're going to be and I'm where I'm going to be. If not now, then when, right?" Kim answered.

"Um…" Shego guessed that her wife made a point, but it seemed a bit depressing. She was where she was going to be. Sure, she would probably get promoted somewhere down the line, but nothing was really changing for her.

"What, something wrong?" the redhead asked because of her mate's dejected expression.

"No, it's just the way that you put it. It makes me feel like I need to settle in for a long, boring life."

"Honey," Kim said with a smile that was infinitely sweeter than her term of endearment. "You should know better. When I'm around, nothing is ever boring," she remarked.

Shego laughed a little bit. "You got that right. It's just the way you put it."

"I guess because even your job, it's not all that boring when you get something to do. I mean, you were chasing after a freaking octopus monster just this afternoon," the younger female pointed out.

"That was just crazy."

"But, not boring."

"I guess you're right. So, now, what do we do?" Shego asked curiously.

"Well, I would've thought you had this all figured out by now, but I guess we should plan this out. Sit down and consider our options and everything."

"Yeah. When do you want to do that?"

"Tomorrow is fine with me. If you want to wait…" Kim trailed off to allow her wife an out if she wanted one.

"No, tomorrow is fine. After I come in from work," Shego answered.

"Okay."

The pale woman then settled into her pillow, figuring that she might go to sleep now. Kim had other ideas since her day was far less active than Shego's and she was not tired at all; all the soda that she had gone through during the day might have had something to do with it. She started rubbing up against the moss-hued woman, who just wrapped her arms tightly around Kim.

"Sleep now, sex later," Shego said in a grumble. She was worn out after spending the better part of her day being caught underneath a bus while attempting to stop a giant octopus from wrecking the city. She was pretty sure that she was going to hate science always and forever because of the things that were unleashed on Go City.

"No!" Kim whined. "I'm so not tired. Just a little sex now."

"What the hell is a little sex exactly?"

"I don't know, but I would love it if we could spend the next hour trying to figure it out in graphic detail," the redhead remarked with an impish smile.

Shego actually laughed, which she was trying hard not to do because she did not want to encourage Kim. "I'm not going over anything in graphic detail with you tonight. I'm going to sleep and so are you," the officer stated.

"All right, you go to sleep."

"Princess, do not touch me in my sleep," Shego ordered.

"I'm not making any promises," Kim hummed, knowing that she was irking her spouse. She would never touch Shego too intimately while she was sleeping, but she was not below molesting Shego no matter what state Shego was in…except if the pale woman was drunk, but that did not happen often.

"You're still such a pervert. Where do you get this perverted nature?"

"Hmm…I wonder…" the petite hero said and her wife knew what she was implying.

"You don't get it from me. If anything, I get it from you," the green-skinned female argued.

"Well, actually, I just get it from being around you and you give into things so easily. So, why not just give into me now? I'm not tired and I'm going to keep you awake whether you like it or not," the olive-eyed scientist pointed out.

"The hell you are," Shego declared.

"We'll see."

"We will."

Shego settled back into her pillow, determined to go to sleep. She ignored the tiny hand wandering her thigh as best she could. She twitched a bit as the gentle hand moved to the inside of her thigh, but she did not acknowledge it in any other form. And then her breath hitched in her chest as the fingers on that tiny hand dared to invade her clothing. The thin digits then proceeded to tenderly, but eagerly plunder her treasure.

"Give in for an hour or this is going to get much worse," Kim promised in a whisper as she noticed Shego struggling to not move in time with her fingers.

"I just want to sleep, Pumpkin," the pale woman replied weakly.

"No, you don't. Come on," Kim gently begged and she placed a soft kiss to Shego's lips.

"You're going to be the death of me. I just know it."

The slender scientist only smiled, knowing what that answer meant. She leaned in for a deeper kiss. She was not sure when she did get so amorous, but she supposed that it was quite all right for her to be that way with Shego, especially since Shego was the same when it came to her. Shego just liked to pretend to be modest for whatever reason that was beyond Kim.

----(Next day)

Shego was sitting with Betty at the café up the street from their job. They were having lunch together. It was a habit that Betty had worked them into, inviting Shego out to lunch sometimes as much as three times a week despite the way crime was going. On some occasions, Shego had grown to resent it, as if Betty was rubbing her condition in, but she never said anything about it because she just did not have it in her to bring her one-eyed friend down from the extended high that she was on because she was going to give birth in about two months.

Now, of course Betty was feeling some side-effects thanks to her condition, but any negative feelings did not bring down the long lasting sensation of grandeur that she felt from the life growing inside of her. She could not believe that she was going to be a mother in about two months. It was an amazing, almost overwhelming thought, but she was definitely looking forward to it.

She could tell that Shego was getting sick of her every now and then, but the truth of the matter was that she sometimes got tired of Shego when she saw the green-skinned woman with Todd. Shego was a shockingly good, maybe even a great parent, and Betty always wondered if she would be able to reach Shego's level of parenting. Would she be as good a mother as Shego? Never in all of her years of life did she consider that such a thought would enter her mind.

"Looks like there's something on your mind," Betty noted. See, it was not all about her, not all the time anyway.

"Princess decided that she's ready for kids and today we're going to consider options," Shego answered, trying to sound as nonchalant about the whole matter.

"Whoa, big step," the one-eyed woman commented. It sounded as if she was making fun of the couple.

"Hey, if you can have a kid with Dahntay and you've been with him for like three seconds, then we can have a kid too," Shego declared soundly.

"I might have been with him for three seconds, but he wasn't my pet for two of those seconds. You two have to be certain that everything is smooth in your relationship," Betty pointed out.

"Everything is smooth. Everything has been smooth for a long time now. Are you against us having kids? You don't think we'd be good parents?" Shego demanded to know in a very offended tone.

"Calm down, Shego. To tell you the truth, I think you two are great parents…well, you are anyway. Princess is a bit shaky. Are you sure she's ready for that? I mean, she acts like a big kid more often than not," the chief replied.

"She's better with Smiley than you might think. She's the reason he's so smart and everything."

"How so?"

"What do you mean 'how so'? You forget my brat's a genius. She sits with him in the house and has all kind of books and computer things and everything for him to learn stuff," the green-skinned officer answered proudly. It did not throw her friend off much because there were always moments when the pale woman showed fantastic pride in her petite spouse.

Betty did not say anything for a couple of seconds. She had forgotten that Kim was a genius. It was just something that never stayed at the forefront of her mind because of what she usually saw or heard from Kim. She was used to the brat whining in the background for something while she was on the phone with Shego or something like that and it was difficult to recall that such an annoyance could be close to unfathomably intelligent.

"Well, you guys need to get to work if you're going to have a baby. That way, my little boy will have a playmate," Betty commented while rubbing her large belly. Her doctor informed her that she was going to have baby boy. She and Dahtnay had picked out a name and decorated the baby's room with all kinds of boy's things. Danhtay could not wait to have a son.

"Like I would let my kid play with your badass son," Shego teased.

"He's not bad. He just likes moving a lot," the one-eyed woman defended her baby, who did like moving a great deal and at very inappropriate times.

"Yeah, well, you need to tell him to not move when you're having a conference with the mayor," the green-skinned officer remarked.

Betty sighed and shook her head. The mayor had taken quite an interest in her for about the past month, which was when her baby found out that he enjoyed moving around. She could find herself in the middle of a rather important point and her baby would just decide to start tossing and turning. At times, she considered that the mayor and other higher-ups just liked seeing her in such an uncharacteristic situation where she would have to stop talking to them and start talking to the baby to relax the child. She thought that they might try to use her pregnancy to push her out of her own division because they had been making strides and others were now trying to jump into her creation and take her establishment from her.

Surprisingly enough, Betty's whole department had gathered around her and circled the wagons so to speak. They were not looking to have another boss and they were not letting someone who was undeserving command them around. They respected Betty and knew that she had paid her dues for her job. Shego was the main one making sure that no outsider that came in either to fill in for Betty for a day or so when Betty had doctor's appointments or so-called inspectors came to "look around" even thought that they could take the one-eyed woman's place because people seemed to think that the pregnancy was interfering with Betty's performance on the job. Shego made sure that the outsiders understood that they would not last a week if they had Betty's job and they all did understand that. She also made sure that inspectors knew that nothing would interfere with Betty's job performance.

"So, are both of you going to try to get pregnant or just one of you?" Betty asked curiously.

Shego shrugged. "We haven't thought on it at all, but…" she trailed off.

The one-eyed woman could guess why her friend did not finish her thought. "You don't want to get pregnant, do you?"

"I've got good reasons for it," the pale woman defended herself. No, she did not want to get pregnant. She could not imagine herself in the position that her friend was in and she doubted that it would work out well anyway.

"I'm sure you do. But now, you should ask yourself, does your brat want to be pregnant on her own?"

Shego nodded to that one. She supposed that it would be on the list of things that she and Kim were going to have to discuss. She wondered if her monster was doing what she was doing, namely discussing the issue of them possibly having a child with her friends. She doubted it for some reason. She was willing to bet that her energetic wife was somewhere getting into trouble.

--------------

Kim was actually doing work, studying the enzymes in some snake venom. She also had a test later on in the day for one of her chemistry classes; she was now trying to get a masters' degree in chemistry, as well as some other fields. She would have talked to her friends about the fact that she and Shego were considering having a child, but she did get stuck with work and she was not interested in sharing "maybe" plans with her friends. They were more into helping when she knew what she was going to do, especially if it gave them a chance to rip on her. She would tell them what was happening as soon as she knew what was happening.

She did wonder what she and her spouse were going to talk about. What was there to talk about? Well, of course, there was the issue of if they were going to have a baby in the first place. She was pretty certain that they were going to agree on that. She was willing to give it a shot and she knew that Shego desired a child, even if she did not want to say it out loud. Well, what was after that, she wondered.

The redhead supposed her bad habit of "wasting" money was going to be brought up. It had already come up when they agreed that they would be Todd's part-time parents. She still threw money away, but she only did that with money that was decidedly hers. When she came into money, she took cash that was for bills and for Todd and put it to the side. Once that money was put away, she was left with her own funds, which she treated as always.

She was not sure if anything new could come up. What she meant by "new" was something that they had not addressed when they considered being Todd's parents. They were going to have do bring up something new, in her opinion, because the circumstances were different. She just did not know what those new things might be. She wondered how long it would take them to come to the decision.

When they decided on taking Todd, it had been a rapidly made decision because they were worried about the boy doing something crazy and get himself hurt, or worse. So, they just had to get him stable before something happened to him. She guessed that she would see what would happen when they sat down to talk about things.

Kim wondered about how the discussion was going to go for the whole day. She got home before Shego did, as she always did. She made herself comfortable, lounging on the sofa with a book. She leaped up and charged the door about an hour later.

"Welcome home!" Kim grinned as she latched onto her spouse before the pale woman could even get completely in the door.

"Gah!" Shego coughed when she was hit. She guessed a long time ago that she just was not going to get used to such tackling hugs, even though she knew to expect them. It was just hard to anticipate when Kim was going to strike. Sometimes the embrace came when she got to into the house totally and other times she could not even put her keys in the door.

"How was your day?" Kim asked with a bright smile.

"Fine," Shego answered while easing her way into the house and closing the door behind her.

"I've been thinking about you all day," the redhead admitted, knowing that would make her wife feel all light on the inside.

Shego fought back a small smile trying hard to work its way onto her face. It would seem that Kim's statement had done exactly what she knew it would do. She leaned down and gave Kim a small kiss for making her feel so warm inside from one little sentence. Kim grinned again because of the show of affection.

"We still have an appointment?" Shego asked curiously.

"Definitely," Kim agreed.

"Okay, well, let me take a shower first."

Kim nodded to agree with that, but was not letting go of Shego. The green-skinned woman saw that coming and pretended to be annoyed with Kim's behavior. She even accused the redhead of being naughty as she started toward the bathroom with Kim still attached to her.

Kim did not join Shego in the shower like she seemed to be trying to do. She went back to the couch and waited there for the older woman. Shego joined her about a half-hour later. Kim crawled over to Shego and lay right on the pale woman's lap. She sighed while Shego went to caress her head for the first time in a long time.

"Okay, so what do we talk about first?" Kim asked curiously.

"Well, first of all, if we do decide to have a kid, you've got to be better with money, Pumpkin," Shego stated bluntly.

The redhead nodded because she saw that one coming. She had no problem with that. She had already been telling herself that she had to do better things with her money.

They talked about possibly changing their lifestyles a bit. Kim agreed to take fewer missions to be around more often and to lessen the chance of her being killed on the job. Shego, in turned, agreed to follow more safety regulations at her job to lessen the chance of being killed. Kim was also ordered to be careful with "those damned legless death traps" that she worked with.

"Also, you're going to have to stop bringing animals home," Shego told the younger female, which caused her to pout.

"But, we've got to expose our baby to the wonders of the natural world!" the redheaded scientist argued in an overly dramatic fashion.

"Yeah, let's wait for the kid to at least be able to walk before exposing him or her to all of the breathing things that will be able to poison the kid," the pale woman remarked.

"Fine, no animals."

"I know. Okay, so money, animals, lifestyle changes…what else?" Shego wondered out loud. "Oh, I guess babysitter and all that."

"I can handle that with my friends. We all work really weird hours because we've got research grants and everything," the redhead answered. She had a research grant, as did Felix and Yori. Ron was the boss of his own business, so he made his own hours, and Monique did most of her work at home, even though she could do it just about anywhere she could take a sketchpad since she designed clothes.

"Okay. A group of wacky geniuses watching a child. I might have to video tape you guys."

"We'll do good. We're not completely out of our minds."

"You're close enough," Shego remarked.

"We'll still do good. Plus, if we have a baby and Yori's going to have one, they can hang out together. We could even watch Betty's baby too, even though Dahntay has more free time on his hands than any of us," Kim commented.

Shego laughed a bit. "You'll have a hard time selling that idea to Betty and Dahntay. They do think you're utterly mad, after all."

Kim smiled, even though it was true. "You fall through a person's roof once and they just never let you live it down, huh?"

Shego laughed a bit, remembering when Kim had fallen through Betty and Dahntay's roof not too long ago. Kim had been running late to meet them all for dinner and she came straight to the house from a mission. The parachute that she jumped from the plane with had not opened completely and she had crashed through the roof because she could not slow down enough. She had been relatively all right, but Shego had rushed her to the hospital, much to her dismay. Shego had to be sure that everything was all right and she really needed a doctor to promise that than Kim just saying that she was fine.

"Are we just going to have one baby?" Kim asked curiously. There were two of them, so she considered that they could both carry a baby and have a big family in one shot.

"Yeah, about that, Kimmie…Are you all right with just carrying the baby?" Shego inquired, making sure to caress a secret sweet spot on Kim's head with the hope that it would make her more open to the idea. The younger female did have to bite back a delighted moan because of the attention.

"You want me to carry the baby?" Kim really did not have much of a problem with that until she started thinking about it. She tried to picture herself at seven, eight, and nine months pregnant. She would be fat and unable to do most of the things that she was accustomed to. Was she ready for that? Kim reached down and touched her own stomach.

"You don't want to, do you?" Shego could understand if Kim did not want to carry a child. Maybe they were not meant to carry babies like other women because they just did crazy things and were used to doing those things daily. "Well, maybe we could adopt…" she offered up.

"Maybe…" Kim agreed in a tone that was very similar to her wife's and that was reluctant.

It would seem that they did not want to adopt. They had adopted Todd and now they wanted someone that was a little piece of them, but that was not possible and they were all too aware of that. No child that they had would ever be a piece of both of them.

"Why didn't you become geneticist?" Shego asked in a small tone, teasing, but serious at the same time. She was sure that if Kim had put her genius to use in some other field rather than studying cold-blooded creatures, she would have been able to figure out how they both could put in half and half on a child.

"Sorry, it never was a field of interest," Kim admitted with a shrug, sounding just a bit guilty over that fact.

"It's okay. Just think about it for a while," Shego said while leaning down to kiss the redhead.

Kim accepted the kiss and nodded, knowing that Shego wanted her to think about carrying their baby. She glanced down at her flat belly. A baby, she asked herself. Could she handle it? And then she reminded herself that she could do anything.

--------------

Next time: Todd comes for the summer and that sparks a bit of controversy between Shego and Kim.


	11. Reason Eleven: One Crazy Summer

I don't own these characters and I don't own the original premise the saga is based on.

Reason Eleven: One Crazy Summer

_We wonder and wonder, but it doesn't get us anywhere. Even when we talk, we still wonder. Our minds seemed both for us and against us, wanting us to succeed and fail. How can we make it through in such a state?_

Kim lay in bed, rubbing her stomach. Shego wanted her to carry their baby if they had one. She could not help wondering why that was, when she was not wondering if she could handle that task anyway. Why just her? She could not figure it out, but the thought of just her carrying their baby made her nervous.

She did remind herself that even if it was both of them, she would still have been pregnant. No matter what, she was going to carrying a baby. Maybe it would be best for one of them to do it and the other could be there for support. She was not sure. Maybe she would feel better if she knew why Shego was leaving the "hard part" to her.

She looked up at Shego, who was sleeping peacefully. Kim wondered what reasons her beloved had for not wanting to carry a baby with her. She hoped that they were really good reasons because if it was something like not wanting to quit work for a little while or something like that, Kim would not accept it. She supposed that the best thing that she could do was ask Shego about things in the morning or the evening, whichever time seemed best.

She decided to settle in for sleep now that she had the decision done. She rested her head on Shego's shoulder; she almost never used a pillow and things had been that way since she was allowed to share a bed with the pale woman. The only reason that there were pillows on her side of the bed was for the symmetry.

----(Next day)

"Hey, Shego," Kim said. They were sitting at the table, having breakfast. She was having some oatmeal while Shego was eating a toasted bagel and reading the newspaper.

"What?" the green-skinned woman asked.

"How come you only want me to carry a baby?"

The question earned Kim her spouse's full attention. Shego put the newspaper down and looked at the redhead. She seemed to consider what she should tell the olive-eyed female and then she looked back at her newspaper.

"I'll tell you later. For now, I figured we'd do a trial run of the things we talked about yesterday. Let's see if we can live up to those things for a few months and then we'll move on to the next phase," Shego answered.

"The next phase?" Kim echoed. There were more phases? It sounded like some grand scheme to win a battle.

"Yes, the next phase, but we'll talk about that a little later. For now, we just need to see if we're ready for this. We have to change our lifestyles."

"Plus, we have to get ready for Smiley this summer," Kim added with a grin. She was looking forward to having their son for the whole summer. It would be so great, she thought. He was going to be their fulltime child for the entire summer. She was going to make sure that it was a time to remember.

"That we do."

"We should sign him up for swimming lessons and some kind of sport. Or we could send him to kung-fun classes. I know a great teacher," the redhead declared.

Shego smiled a bit. She was glad that Kim was so hyped about having Todd for the summer. It showed that the younger female was ready and willing to take care of a child. She figured that the redheaded adventurer would try her best to make it through their few months trial period to prove that they could change in order to support a baby.

"You need to wait for Smiles to show up for that one. You don't know if he wants to learn how to swim and we're not having any strange people teaching my boy kung-fu. If anybody teaches my gremlin how to fight, it's going to be me," Shego proclaimed.

Kim chuckled a bit. "Well, you're going to have a busy summer running after him then. We really should plan some good stuff to do with him, like a trip to the zoo."

"Yeah, and I'm going to leave you both right in the reptile house."

"It would feel like home," the hero remarked.

"Yeah, but with less snakes," the pale woman commented.

Kim laughed a bit and they finished up breakfast. They departed the house after exchanging a deep kiss and they went their separate days. It was time to try and change how they lived to see if they were prepared to be fulltime parents.

----(New day)

Getting Todd was Hell on Earth as usual, but they finally managed to pry him away from the bastards that did not want him around anyway. His birth parents just had a problem with releasing the child to a married lesbian couple. Shego thought that one day when they came to get Todd, she was just going to go bananas on his birth parents and break their arms and legs. She could not understand why they put up such a struggle over a boy that they did not want and they knew that he was going to get to Shego and Kim somehow. They were such pricks, she thought heatedly.

They thought that having Todd around would help them in testing their willingness and drive to be fulltime parents. They would be able to see if they could take care of him for the whole summer and for them, that would be confirmation that they were ready for a baby.

They had been doing well with trying to change their lives. Kim had taken to turning down missions every now and again, especially if some well-trained law enforcement agency could handle it, if they put their minds to it anyway. She was also more cautious than she used to be when she went out. She had not fallen through any roofs recently, much to Shego's delight.

Shego had been following more safety procedures at her job, even though she had found that it was a little difficult to do that when she was chasing down a band of super-powered psychos that thought it was a good time to rob a bank. It was even harder when there were monsters ripping about the city thanks to some scientific mishap or insane scheme. Still, she tried her best to be careful, reminding herself that it was her idea that they be cautious and try to prepare for having a baby.

She silently admitted that the best thing about their whole "trying to careful" deal was that Kim did not come home as often anymore with horrible wounds. Shego found herself worrying just a little less about her heroic spouse, but, of course, she still worried. Kim was just about the only person that she worried about, except for their part-time son anyway.

Thinking about Todd, she glanced into the back seat since he was so quiet. He had actually fallen asleep. He was lying on top of his saber-tooth plush toy that they had gotten him his first Christmas with them. She smiled softly to herself.

"Ah, I see you smiling," Kim said and that ruined the moment.

"Damn it, Princess. Just shut up," Shego huffed. She did not have a better comeback at the moment because she had been enjoying reflecting on their little redheaded son.

Kim smiled. "You're so grumpy, honey," she commented with a huge grin. She loved using all kinds of terms of endearment on Shego, but no one ever seemed to stick.

"Don't make me pull this car over and whip your ass," the green-skinned woman replied.

"You don't want to pull this car over or I'll whip your ass," the olive-eyed adventurer teased.

Shego frowned and decided to just ignore her monster or they were seriously going to have to fight on the side of the road. So, where they ready, she wondered. Could they take care of a child fulltime? She supposed that they were about to find out and that was a good thing.

--------------

Having the Todd was something like what Shego expected, but there were also unanticipated things with him being in the house. She expected him to be hyper, run around, and act out while he had the chance. She just thought that he would settle down eventually, but so far that was not the case.

He had jumped at the chance to get swimming lessons when Kim suggested that to him. Kim was supposed to be responsible for going with him and watching him. Shego wanted to see how that was going to over. Something inside of her told her that every now and then, she was going to get stuck with the task of taking him to the pool and having to deal with loudmouth brats for the day. It only happened once when Kim found herself stuck out of the country because a ride from a mission had broken down, but Shego seemed to take it personally.

That night, she and Kim actually had a fight; it was not a physical fight, but it probably would have made more sense to the redhead if it was. Shego had tried to start it the second that her wife came in, but the slender scientist refused to rise to the occasion because Todd was around. As soon as they put him to bed and they went to their room, all bets were off though.

"What the fuck was that all about today?" Shego demanded to know, heated expression on her face to match her tone.

"Look, I got stuck. What do you want to do, flap my arms and fly back here from Mexico?" Kim countered.

"You're the one that wanted him to do this swimming shit. If you're not going to be able to take him, then you shouldn't have signed him up for it," the pale woman stated.

"It was just once. You could've left him with Mo if you didn't want to take him to class," the younger female huffed. It was not like it was a must for Shego to take Todd. He could have stayed with Monique, who had been babysitting him because Kim had been called away on what she thought would be a quick mission.

"Oh, yeah, so I can be the bad guy, right? So, he can remember that She-she didn't take him to class when Kimmie said so," the raven-haired officer barked.

"It wasn't like that at all," Kim argued. She just knew that he liked swim class and he would not want to miss it. Since she could not be there, she thought that Shego would have no problem with watching him, even though it meant that she had to leave work early. She did not see why that would be a problem, though.

"Yeah, right," Shego scoffed and she folded her arms across her chest.

"Shego, what the hell did you want me to do? Ask Monique? Because if this happens again, I will do just that. Simple as that and we won't even have to talk about this anymore," Kim stated.

"Oh, now you're going to try to make it seem like I don't want to be a part of my son's life?" the green-skinned woman inquired with much attitude.

Kim sighed and pinched the bridge her nose in frustration. It would seem that nothing she did was working out that day when it came to Shego. She did not even see why her wife was upset. She thought that Shego would have a good time watching Todd nearly drown; he was not a strong swimmer yet and just loved being in the water more than anything else. She knew that she enjoyed watching him because he was so happy, so she thought that it was only logical that her spouse would like it too since their child enjoyed the water so much.

"Baby, what the fuck do you want from me?" Kim opted to ask from frustration. What was she supposed to do? What was she supposed to say? Why were they even arguing? She did not know and she was wary of it already.

"Just come right out and say whatever the hell you're trying to say," Shego demanded.

"I'm trying to say that if you didn't want to take Smiley, you could've said so. You could've left him with Mo and everything would have been all right. If he wanted to know why he didn't go swimming today, I would've told him when I got in that it was because I got stuck in another country. That's all. I didn't think you'd be so angry about it," Kim explained.

"You said you'd be responsible for all this shit, but just a little while into, you're pushing it on to me," Shego pointed out.

Kim sighed. "It was this one time. But, fine, I won't ask you do it ever again. It won't come up," she stated if only to end the argument because she did not even understand why they were fighting.

"Good," the older female said sharply.

They then stood there silently, not knowing what to do now. It was their first argument as a real couple and they were not sure what to do. Kim ended up doing what she used to do whenever Shego seriously yelled at her. She left the room. Who wanted to sleep next to someone that thought she was irresponsible and was hollering at her for no real reason anyway?

Shego watched her lover leave what was supposed to be like a sanctuary for them. She sat down at the end of the bed and sighed. She rubbed her face with her hands rather hard and asked herself what the hell she had just done.

She had just blown up on Kim because the scientist had not been able to take Todd swimming and had asked her to do. She knew that she should not feel so pissy about it and she knew that it was not the reason that she was so angry. Any other time, sure, she would have been irked with having to leave work and take Todd somewhere that Kim was supposed to handle, but she would not have taken things as far as she taken them moments ago.

"Maybe it is too much pressure…" Shego thought.

----(Next day)

"Kimmie," Todd whispered while poking Kim in the arm with his pudgy little index finger. He was carrying his saber-tooth plush toy in his other hand.

"What, Smiles?" Kim asked with a groan. She was sleeping on the sofa without a blanket or pillow. It was like she had settled in for a nap, but having a full night's sleep on the sofa was not a good move, she silently noted. She hoped that she never had to go through it again.

"How come you not in bed?" he asked.

"_You're_ not," she corrected his improper speech.

"How come _you're_ not in bed?" he repeated his question.

"It's a long story. So, you want something?"

"Watch cartoons and have breakfast, but She-she's not up yet," he reported.

"No? Well, that's okay. I'll make up some breakfast. What do you want?" she asked while sitting up to let him sit down on the sofa.

"Cake," he answered with a grin. He considered that he might be able to get away with that one with Kim.

Kim laughed. "We'll see about that one. Cake that looks like oatmeal good enough for you?" she inquired, which caused him to pout.

"Fine," he sighed, knowing that they were having oatmeal that morning. He liked oatmeal, though, so it really was fine.

Kim got up to make breakfast while Todd turned on the television to watch cartoons, as he did every morning. A couple of minutes into his show, he heard someone coming downstairs. He knew that it was his She-she and greeted her good morning without bothering to turn around.

"Hey, booger," Shego replied, entering the living room and leaning over the back of the sofa to kiss the top of his head.

He grinned because of the greeting, which was the reaction she expected and wanted. She then looked around for Kim because the redheads usually both could be found lounging in the living room early in the morning without a care in the world and no place to go unless they wanted to. It would seem that Kim was not there that morning. She wondered if Kim had left the house last night and not just their room.

"Hey, big head, where's your bad influence?" Shego inquired, knowing that he would know who she meant.

"Making breakfast for us," he reported.

"Oh, thanks."

Todd nodded and Shego left the area. She walked into the kitchen where she saw Kim standing at the stove and stirring a pot. It was a very rare sight in the house and Shego drank it in for a moment to add to her mental images of her wife being adorable in her own odd way. And then, Shego approached, getting right behind Kim before the redhead spoke up.

"Don't," Kim said in a stern tone that she pretty much never used on her mate. She did not want to hear anything more from Shego, believing that she had taken enough of a verbal beating last night.

"Let me just explain," Shego replied while cautiously reaching out to touch her spouse. She never thought that she would have to try for Kim in a tentative manner like she was doing now. She brushed her fingertips over Kim's shoulder, only to be shrugged off.

"What's to explain? I already know not to ask you to take Smiley anymore. End of discussion," the shorter female stated.

"No, not end of discussion. I blew up on you yesterday for no reason."

"No, really?" Kim said sarcastically.

"It's just…" Shego sighed and she ran her fingers through her hair in aggravation. She could understand why Kim was upset with her because she was upset with herself for what happened between them. "Yesterday was stressful before you called and you gave me such short notice about the swimming thing, but I'm not looking to place blame you, Princess," she promised.

"Yeah, it didn't seem that way last night, though," the redheaded scientist pointed out.

"I know. Look, I just…work was crazy," Shego said as if that meant anything.

"How so?" Kim asked, turning around to look her spouse in the eye.

"Betty told me that I'm going to be interim chief while she was away on maternity leave," Shego informed her munchkin.

"And that's bad news?" Kim guessed.

"I don't want her job and she sprung that shit on me just out of the blue. Not to mention, she's going to be gone in like two weeks, maybe less than that. She's trying her best to stay on until the last minute, but she's probably going to leave before two weeks are up and I'll be in charge. I don't want this shit. I don't want to be in charge," the pale woman explained with an exhausted look on her face. A person might think that she was already the boss from her weary expression.

"But, it's only for a little while," the hero said in a gentle tone, hoping to comfort the woman that had hurt her so thoroughly roughly eight hours ago. She could forgive her lover for that, especially since she was getting an apology and an explanation.

"Still, I wished she'd pick someone else for this job."

"You'll do fine, sweetie," Kim said and she grabbed Shego in a reassuring embrace, which the green-skinned officer accepted.

"I really don't want this fucking job," Shego sighed while pressing Kim close to her. It felt good to be embraced, especially when she was feeling so down. It felt extraordinary for someone to be concerned for her while she was feeling distressed and maybe even a little overwhelmed.

"You'll do fine," Kim repeated.

The emerald-eyed female did not respond. She just held Kim to her, hoping that the embrace said the words that she could not, namely "I'm sorry." She then released Kim when they remembered the oatmeal. They ended up finding out that it burnt.

"You look at you, just messing up," Shego teased her petite wife.

"You distracted me," Kim argued with a good-natured smiled while throwing the food out.

"Let me handle this. You go and get Smiley into trouble," the pale woman said.

The scientist saluted to be funny and then exited the kitchen. The older female started making breakfast and tried not to think about what happened last night. She had been so irked that she had blown up on Kim for no real reason and to make matters worse, she would have done it in front of Todd if Kim had not stopped her. That was no way to be the head of a household, she told herself.

"Maybe I'm the one that's not ready to be a fulltime mom," Shego considered. Maybe it was right for her and Kim to just have a part-time child if she was going to behave so poorly.

She could not believe that she had been so stupid as to nearly holler at Kim with their son right there. She knew how things like that affected a child much better than Kim did and yet, she had been the idiot. So, she supposed that it was possible that she was not ready for them to have a baby. And that would not be the only moment of doubt in her about being a fulltime parent.

----(New day)

Shego and Kim were certain that they had put Todd in bed for the night. Kim had read him a story, just like he liked. Shego had turned on his nightlight for him because he still had some qualms with boogeymen sneaking in if the room was totally dark. They both kissed him goodnight and left him to dream happy dreams.

They cuddled up on the sofa for a while, watching a movie, and then they retired to bed about two hours later. They were not about to go to sleep, though. It was time for a bit of fun.

Passionate kissing was quickly followed by pajama shirts being yanked off. Hands wandered uncovered skin while moans filled the room. And then an unexpected noise joined in, their son's voice.

"Kimmie. She-she," Todd called from the doorway, causing the couple to turn toward the door with shocked expressions on their faces.

"Don't turn on the light, Smiley," Shego ordered in a bit of a panicked tone as she and Kim began searching the bed frantically for articles of clothing while making sure to remain in the dark, so that their son would not see them topless. He had enough problems without seeing the people that he thought of as his parents almost nude.

"How come?" the child asked curiously while watching their shadowy figures scramble with a puzzled looking gracing his pale features. It seemed like an odd command, especially since it was so dark. He thought that he should be asked to turn on the light if anything, but he did not flick the switch on the wall near him.

"Just don't," Shego commanded forcefully as she found a shirt, but it turned out to be Kim's. She gave the top to the redhead, who quickly dressed herself.

The slender hero hopped out of the bed and went to Todd to find out what was going on with him while Shego searched the room for her shirt. Kim bent down to talk with Todd, who was holding his plush toy like a lifesaver. He looked at Shego for a moment and then turned his attention to Kim.

"What's wrong, boogie?" Kim asked, shortening Shego's nickname for him.

"I had a nightmare," he reported while rubbing his eye with his freehand, looking just downright pitiful and adorable at the same time.

"Oh, so you want to sleep in here, huh?" the hero guessed.

"Uh-huh."

"Okay. Come on, little guy," Kim said and then she turned to look back into the room. "Um, Shego, Smiley wants to sleep in here with us," she informed her wife.

"No problem," Shego replied, wearing her pajama shirt, although it was riding a bit high because she practically jumped into the thing.

Kim picked Todd up, even though she knew that irked Shego to no end. They all settled into the bed with Todd in the middle of the couple because that was how he felt the safest. Shego went to bed hot and bothered and that was not going to be the last time that it happened. Kim was not a fan of it either, but she took it better than Shego. Being fulltime parents, they realized would mean less sex. They were not too sure if they were ready for that. Maybe they had jumped the gun on thinking that they were ready to be parents.

----(New day)

Shego was taken from her sleep by a horrible sound, the phone ringing. She silently cursed whoever was calling her on her day off from her horrible new job of being the chief and then when she caught sight of what time it, she cursed out loud. Who the hell was calling her at five in the morning? Did the person not know how terrible her week had been? God, she did not know how Betty did that ridiculous job day in and day out. She grabbed the phone and looked at the caller ID.

"Dahntay, what the fuck, man?" Shego inquired in a groggy voice.

"She wanted me to call you. She's having the baby," Dahntay informed the pale woman in that horrific high pitch voice of his.

"Baby?" she echoed and for a moment, she had no idea what he was talking about. And then it hit her like a semi truck. "She's having the baby right now?" Shego asked in a shock while sitting up.

"Yes, she wants you to come to the hospital," he reported.

"Um…sure. Just tell me which one and let me get dressed. I'll be there as soon as I can," the moss-hued female assured him.

Dahntay gave her the information that she required and then she got up out of bed. She glanced over and saw that Kim was awake too. The redhead was smiling at her.

"No, you can't come," Shego said because she knew that was what was going through Kim's mind.

"But, I want to see the little baby," the hero replied.

"Someone has to stay and watch Smiley," Shego pointed out.

"But, I want to come too," Todd commented. He was sleeping in the bed in between them and woke up when Kim did, which was about the time Shego had answered the phone since she had done so rather loudly.

"What the?" Shego turned her attention to the little boy. "No, this is not a field trip. She's having a baby."

"That we want to see," the scientist replied.

"No. You two go back to sleep. This is ridiculous. It's a baby, not a show," the green-skinned female stated.

"We don't think it's a show. We just want to see the baby," Kim replied.

"Then you can wait for her to bring the baby home and then you can see the baby. I'm not taking you two clowns into a hospital at five in the morning. Betty isn't going to need your special brand of lunacy at the moment. So, just go back to sleep," Shego ordered.

"But…" Kim began to pout and Todd joined in.

"No, don't you two start," Shego commanded. The last thing that she wanted to see was both of her monsters doing the infamous "puppy-dog pout."

"But—"

"No! Just wait for her to go home with the baby and then I'll take you to see the baby, okay?" the pale woman huffed.

"You don't trust us, do you?" Kim inquired with a half-smile.

"I know how you two act and I'm not taking you to a hospital to act that way. Betty doesn't need your nutty antics either. So, just go back to sleep and I'll take you to see the baby when Betty goes home," Shego stated soundly.

"We'll be good, though, She-she," Todd promised.

"Yeah, what he said," Kim agreed.

Shego sighed. She was all too aware that they were going to bug her into she gave in. They grinned because they knew that sound meant. They were about to get up and get dressed, but they knew that they needed to wait for her word.

"Fine, but you two better be extra-good or I swear you're going to regret it," Shego vowed.

The redheads nodded to show that they understood and the whole family got dressed. They went off to the hospital and waited around for word that Betty had the baby. Todd eventually fell asleep in Shego's lap while they waited. They could not go see the one-eyed woman until nine in the morning. Shego carried Todd into the room since he was knocked out and the family entered to see Betty and Dahntay fussing over a little bundle.

"So, that's your bump?" Shego inquired from the doorway. The new parents turned their attention to the family in the doorway.

"Yeah, this is my bump," Betty answered with small smile. The "bump" was the baby and they were calling the child that because through out Betty's pregnancy, Shego always referred to the baby as a "bump in her stomach."

"So, what's the little guy's name?" Shego asked as she came in closer, standing on the opposite side of the bed from Dahntay.

"Little girl," the new father corrected her.

"Girl? You had a baby girl?" the pale woman asked her friend. Apparently, doctors did not know everything because she recalled that the doctor told Betty that she was going to have a boy.

"Yeah. A beautiful, huge baby girl," Betty answered with an exhausted sigh. Giving birth to a nine pound baby girl was just about the most tiring thing she had done next to fighting with her best friend.

"Lucky you," Shego said with a small smile.

"Do you want to hold her?" Betty asked her usually cranky friend.

"I don't know about that," Shego answered. "I'm holding Smiley after all."

"Put that boy down. He's way too big to get carried around," the one-eyed woman stated. It was something that Shego typically agreed with, but he was knocked out at the moment and she thought that it was a good time to make an exception to the rule.

"Here, give him to me," Kim said while she put her hands out for the little boy.

Shego did not argue and handed over the child, even though she really would have liked the excuse to not hold the baby. Todd made a noise when he was exchanged from parent to parent. Shego then turned her attention to the little baby and sighed. She really did not want to hold the kid.

Betty eased the baby from her arms to Shego's grip. The pale woman yelped very quietly, but did not have time to hope that no one noticed. She almost immediately noticed the small weight in her arms and thought about how tiny her friend's child was. To hold such a little creature, it was amazing. To think about how helpless and defenseless the baby was; to know that the child would have to depend on Betty…it was overwhelming.

"You're in good hands, kid," Shego commented in her mind.

The room was silent as they watched Shego with the baby and she did not know it, but they could practically see her thoughts because of her intense expression. Betty glanced over at Kim, who was staring at Shego with similar intensity that the green-skinned woman was eyeing the baby.

After a little time passed, Shego gave Betty her child back and then tried to pretend that she had not been completely entranced with the baby by commenting that the child looked like a lizard. The baby did not seem to appreciate that and started crying, which woke Todd up. He looked over at the source of the noise and showed his age.

"Wow, it's a baby. Why's it making all that noise? Did someone break it?" he inquired rather seriously.

"No," Betty answered with a laugh. "She's not broken."

"If it's feeding time, we will catch you guys later," Shego commented.

"Well then, see you later," Betty replied.

The visiting trio exited the hospital room and proceeded to return home. Kim and Shego kept glancing at each other. Shego had come to realize something very important in her few moments of holding Betty's little girl; she wanted a baby. She wanted a baby with Kim and she would do anything to have one.

"Hey, Princess," Shego said.

"Yeah?" Kim replied.

"How about I take Smiley to his next swimming class?" the pale woman offered.

Kim smiled a bit. "How about we both take him for once?" she suggested and her taller spouse nodded in agreement.

--------------

Next time: it's decided, they're going to have a baby. But, how?


	12. Reason Twelve: Talk it over

I don't own these characters or the original premise behind this saga.

Reason Twelve: Talk it over

_I wish only for your happiness and you wish only for mine. Let's look out for each other to make sure we remain happy._

Kim and Shego spent the summer taking care of Todd with a silent decision hanging in the air between them. Shego wanted a baby and she wanted Kim to carry the baby. The redhead was willing, especially after seeing Shego's expression when she was holding Betty's daughter, who was named Mayah. In fact, every time that they saw Mayah, Shego had to hold the baby and that just made Kim all the more willing. The only thing was that neither said anything to each other yet.

They were focused on Todd more than anything else, even though Shego also had to worry about being chief for the summer too. The pale woman hated her new job more than anything that she could think of at the moment. She did not like being the in-between for the office and the political heads of the city. She was also not a fan of all of the paperwork and just the inertia that was involved in being the boss. She wanted to go out and wrangle the bad guys. She wanted some action and she was so happy when Betty came back at the end of the summer to take her job back.

"There is a God," Shego quietly decided as Betty showed up for work for the first time in two months.

The pale woman wanted to embrace her best friend when she entered the office and declared that she was there to take her desk back. Instead of hugging Betty and letting her know that she was missed, Shego acted nonchalant about things. She did not even bother to get out of the real chief's seat.

"You look mighty comfortable," the one-eyed woman commented when she entered her office.

"Yeah, well, you know how I like to be in charge," Shego remarked.

"Yeah, well, those days are over," Betty proclaimed.

"Well, how do you know I'm not in the mood for mutiny? Power's gone right to my head," the green-skinned woman quipped with a devilish smile, as if she was serious. She would not let Betty know how much suffering she went through for the couple of months that she had been in charge.

"I've got no doubt about that, but you don't want to have to fight me for you to get your bony ass out of my chair," Betty stated.

"I'm going to get up, but only because I think it's wrong for me to take a mother away from a child so soon. Don't want Mayah growing up to know her mother got killed for a stupid job," Shego remarked.

The interim chief stood up and yielded the chair to the true boss. Shego was glad that her stint in pure Hell was over. She never wanted to do that job again.

"I heard you held things together really well while I was away. I guess when Dahntay and I have another child, I can leave this place to you again," Betty commented and Shego lost what little color that she had in her face.

"Again?" the officer echoed with a haunted expression. Betty wanted her to do that job again? What the hell was her friend smoking on to have such crazy ideas!

"Yeah, again. It won't be anytime soon, but when the time comes, at least I know who to leave the place to," the one-eyed woman said. Well, she did not plan on having another child anytime soon anyway.

Shego had to leave the office before she reacted to that news and she was not sure how she was going to react. There was a chance that she might have reached across the desk and just punched her friend as hard as she possibly could. So, instead of risking that, she just returned to her old desk, which was covered in dust thanks to two months of disuse. She did not mind that; she doubted that she would ever be so happy to see such a rickety piece of junk furniture again. Things could get back to normal at work now and now all she had was home life to worry about.

----(New day)

Kim and Shego had to take Todd back to his biological parents because he started second grade in a couple of days. They had brought him all sorts of back-to-school junk, but they could not get him the one thing that he wanted, which was to stay with them. He had enjoyed living with them for the whole summer and wished that it could have been a permanent thing. He could only vague understand why it could not be permanent, no matter how many times his Kimmie and She-she explained it to him.

It broke their hearts when he looked at them like he was going to burst into tears because they had to take him back to his birth parents. They were not sure what to tell him as to why he could not live with them all year, especially since everything that they told him only earned them puzzled looks and tears. At least they had made it beyond him thinking that something that he did made them not want him, but still, it did not make dropping him off any easier.

They promised to come get him for the weekend and he could spend that time with them, like always. It only managed to lift his spirits a little. It was minor consolation to them too. How they wished that they could be there for his first day of school and drop him off, watch him run off, and be home for him when he came in to tell them about his day. The most they could do was patiently wait for a phone call from the boy for him to tell him what was going on.

The temporary farewell was heartwarming with hugs and kisses. They walked Todd to the door of his biological parents' huge mansion and the maid greeted them, which was the usual. She took the sorrowful looking boy from them and led him into the house. The door was closed as Kim was trying to wave bye one more time. It was a quiet drive home, as was the norm once they released their son into the custody of people that they knew did not love him even a faction as much as they did and did not take care of him in the slightest when it came to the intangible things that a child required in life.

----(New day)

Okay, it was decided that it was time to sit down and talk business as far as Kim and Shego were considered. They both knew what the other had been thinking for a long while now, so it was time to put it out in the air and make sure that they were on the same page. It was time to discuss seriously having a baby.

They were sitting on the sofa in their house clothes. They were entwined with each other where Kim was sitting in between Shego's legs and had her legs around Shego's waist. The pale woman had her hands resting against Kim's bare thighs, just in case the urge to caress the redhead overcame her; the younger woman had on some very high-riding shorts.

"So, I'm ready to ruin my figure," Kim declared to get the conversation started. She touched her stomach and silently bid her flat belly farewell.

"It's okay. Your figure won't be ruined to me," Shego promised in a tender tone as she reached her hand over and lightly ran her warm fingers over her spouse's abdomen.

"Now, how come I'm the only one around here that's going to get fat?" the redhead inquired.

"Just because I don't know what my body might do to a baby. I've got radiation in my system from my powers and then there's also the healing factor that comes along with my powers. What if my body aborts the baby, thinking it's a foreign body," the raven-haired woman explained. "I don't want to go through that, Pumpkin. I don't want us to go through that."

"Oh…" Kim muttered. She never thought about that. When she looked at Shego, she saw an extraordinary woman, yes, but she rarely thought about how extraordinary her wife really was.

"Yeah, so I would just rather not go through that."

"So, what now? How are we going to have a baby? Do you want to just go to a place and pick a donor?" Kim asked curiously.

"Ew, no," Shego objected. They could give them genes from just about any loser in some place like that. Even though she was not going to be able to add to their child genetically, she wanted to give the baby a good chance in life before being born.

"What about your brothers?" the redhead suggested. She figured that Shego's brothers were the closest people that they had for the baby being some of both of them genetically speaking.

"Okay, several problems about that. The first being that they have radiation in them too, just like me, so I don't know what that might do. Second, Hego would not do it. Third, Mego wouldn't let us forget and might actually want the kid to refer to him as 'dad.' Fourth, the last thing I need is for the twins being able to say that they had a piece of themselves inside of you," the green-skinned woman answered.

"I can see the problem there. Well, if we can't use them then there's no real way for the baby to be a piece of both of us," Kim pointed out.

"I know…" Shego sighed. She was back to wishing that she had been born male. If she had, she would screw Kim like crazy until the redhead was carrying their child, but that was not how things went. She would actually be willing to take the chance if she were a guy, even with the radiation in her body.

"Are you sure you don't want one of your brothers to do it? Maybe the radiation isn't that bad. I mean, you're all totally healthy."

"I can't chance doing something like that to a baby if it's not all right. I mean, the kid could be born with all kinds of tumors or something because of our makeup and even if that doesn't happen, there are the other things. I know my brothers and really the only ones that would consider doing this are the twins and it doubt that they would do it either. They would think it's creepy to father their own niece or nephew."

"They would think it's creepy? These are guys that think they're one guy," Kim pointed out. How the hell could anything be creepy to them?

"Yeah, another reason I wouldn't want them to donate anything. Something's not right in those two. It might be hereditary," the older female commented.

"Babe, if it is, that's in you too," the redhead stated with a smile.

"Hey, don't compare me to those maniacs." Shego lightly hit Kim in the shoulder to further admonish her.

"Spousal abuse!" the olive-eyed hero cried.

"You need to learn to watch your mouth. You're such a bad girl," the elder female commented and then she caressed the redhead's thighs.

"So, you still want to have a baby, even though…" Kim trailed off. She did not want to say that the baby would not biological be Shego's because it seemed harsh and actually irrelevant. Considering how they both felt about Todd, she thought that they probably should just adopt a child, but she was not going to suggest that. She knew that Shego wanted a baby that was their own and she was of like mind in that.

"Yes, I still want us to have a baby. We just have to think about a suitable donor. Anyone you could think of that would do this for us?"

"Ron," Kim said almost automatically. She and Ron had been best friends since kindergarten, so she was pretty sure that he would do anything that he could to help her out.

"Yeah…no," Shego said bluntly.

"Why? What's wrong with Ron?" Kim inquired in a defensive tone, even though she was used to her wife picking on her best friend.

"You mean aside from everything? No way are you carrying a baby with his genes."

"Why not? Yori is."

Shego made an indigent noise. "Yori also spends most of her nights lying underneath that guy. You want to do that too?" she inquired to make her point.

"No. What the hell does that have to do with anything?" the redhead countered with a disturbed look on her face. It was almost like Shego had told her to go screw her brother with that statement.

"Everything. Don't bring him for this unless you're willing to go sleep with him. Now, who else is there?" the pale woman wondered aloud.

"Well…there's Felix," Kim offered. There was nothing about him that Kim knew offended Shego.

The green-skinned woman seemed to consider that suggestion. There really was nothing offensive about Felix. He was a polite young man most of the time and according to Kim, quite the intelligent fellow. She knew from the few times that she had spent around him that he seemed to bring out Kim's genius side better than anyone else because they liked to talk science when they got into each other's company. He was a handsome guy and his physical makeup did not seem weak, even though he was bound to a wheelchair.

"You think he would?" Shego asked with a curious expression.

"Well, we'd have to ask him…and I guess, Monique," Kim answered.

"You think she'd be okay with this? She doesn't seem like the kind of a person willing to share her little lecher," Shego remarked. She thought that Monique was like her in that manner because she damn sure would not be willing to share her little pervert.

"Well, we could run the idea by them. We don't know unless we try," the petite hero commented with that almost sickening optimism of hers. She even smiled.

"You're always just way too hopeful," Shego said.

"Just one of the many things you love about me," Kim hummed with a knowing look in her eyes, still smiling like a happy elf.

The pale woman did not know how to argue that, so she decided not to. It was true anyway; she did love Kim's optimism. She leaned forward and kissed the smaller female while moving her hands from the outside of Kim's thighs to the inside.

----(New day)

Shego and Kim met Monique and Felix at a little restaurant. The two ladies had not told the other couple why they wanted to talk with them because they did not want to discuss the matter over the phone. They figured that if they were out in public, Monique or Felix would be less likely to overreact.

"So, why'd you two call us out here?" Felix asked curiously.

"Yeah, what was so important that you couldn't tell us over the phone?" Monique added in.

Shego glanced at Kim. She figured that it would be best for the redhead to explain everything since they were Kim's friends. Kim had no problem with answering any and all questions, but she had to take a deep breath first. She knew that she was about to ask a lot of the couple and she did not want them to get too upset with her.

"Well, Mo, Felix, Shego and I have been thinking about how we want to have a baby," Kim started the whole speech.

"A baby?" Felix echoed and then he looked between the adventurer and her spouse. How were they going to have a baby? They were two women last time he checked. Obviously, he could be a little oblivious sometimes.

"Yeah, we want to have a baby," Kim repeated.

"And what's that got to do with us?" Monique inquired. She hoped that her friend was not going to where she thought the hero was going.

"We were hoping that Felix would—" the olive-eyed scientist did not even get the chance to finish her sentence.

"No," Monique said rather bluntly. It would seem that her friend was going where she thought that the redhead was and she was not in favor of that at all. There was no way in hell that she was going to let her man father children for someone else, even if the person was her best friend.

"Whoa," Shego muttered. She had not thought that they would be shot down so harshly, although she knew that it was going to be Monique that crushed the thought.

"But, Monique—" Kim attempted to argue, but her friend was not trying to hear it.

"No," the wavy-haired female stated again.

"Wait, you guys want me to father the baby for you?" Felix asked. He guessed that made a lot more sense than the crazy ideas he was getting. He quietly laughed to himself for missing that before it was so plainly stated.

"Yeah, we thought it would be better than going to a sperm bank and having to take their word on what we were getting. With you, we know what we're working with," Kim pointed out with a forced, almost awkward smile.

"You're not working with anything. He's not going to do it," Monique informed everyone rather soundly.

"Please," Kim requested. She did not know it, but her expression looked so close to begging that it was heartbreaking.

"Look, we're not trying to get him to take care of the kid or anything once the baby's born. We just want him to jump start the process," Shego pointed out. It was not like they were going to rape Felix and then force him to provide some kind of care for the baby. It was their baby and they were going to take care of everything once the baby was conceived.

"No," Monique said again. Nothing that they were going to say would make her change her mind. Her husband was not going to father kids by or for anyone.

"Please," the redhead said again. "We really want to have a baby."

"Then go get your own man. Call Josh or something," Monique huffed. She seemed rather offended that her friend would dare ask her husband to do such a thing.

Kim was now insulted that Josh was brought up. Shego frowned at the mention of that asshole, who she had happily not seen or heard anything about for a couple of years before that moment. Like hell she would even think to let Kim carry the baby of that dickhead.

"What the hell is your problem? We just want the guy's sperm. Not like we want him or anything more from him after that. Why the fuck can't you just do this?" Shego inquired with a growl.

"I don't have to answer that. Come on, baby," Monique said as she stood up and started walking out. Felix looked at the couple, as if he was apologizing for his wife's behavior and then he followed her.

"I figured that was going to go something like that," Kim commented.

"I did too," Shego agreed. She had actually expected Felix to be against the idea too, but he had not even gotten the chance to weigh in on the subject. They both noted that he did not seem insulted or anything, though.

--------------

"Baby, don't you think you were a little too harsh back there?" Felix asked his wife when they were in the car and heading home.

"No. How dare they ask something like that? If they want to have a baby, they can go out and get their own guy," Monique huffed.

"But, it wasn't like they were asking me to sleep with one of them. They just want my sperm," he pointed out. He was actually flattered that they had come to him to father the child. After all, he knew that Shego had brothers that they could have gone to and impregnated Kim or they could have used Kim's brothers to impregnate Shego, but they had asked him.

"Well, it's not just your sperm," the chocolate-eyed woman argued.

Felix nodded because he thought that she had a point. It was not just his sperm since he was married, but it was not like they had just come to him. They had come to both of them and were straight up, even though Monique had shut them down before they even got to the whole point that they had been trying to get out.

"I know it's not just my sperm, but that's all they wanted. I mean, shouldn't I, as a friend, help them out, if I can?" he asked.

"You want to have a baby with them?" she inquired incredulously. From the way that she was upset, it really seemed like Shego and Kim had offered themselves to Felix for an orgy and not because they wanted to have a child.

"I don't think it's about having a baby with them. This is one of those things were the baby would be theirs. I wouldn't have to do anything," Felix commented.

"And you're all right with that? You'd father a kid that you'd more than likely see every week or something and you wouldn't be able to tell the kid that you're the father. Would you really start a life and then have nothing to do with it?" Monique inquired.

Felix was silent. Could he do that? He probably would see the kid often and he doubted that he would be allowed to act like a father toward the kid. Maybe it was not the best idea for him to be Kim and Shego's donor if that was the case.

"Maybe you were right, babe," he muttered. He would have liked to help Kim. She had looked so wanting, pleading with them to consider being the donor.

Monique glanced at her husband. He looked oddly down and out about coming to the right conclusion. She could actually understand his feelings because she was picturing the look on Kim's face as she told the redhead "no." Kim had appeared so crushed and it hurt her to know that she had wounded her best friend in such a way. But, she did stand by her "no." They could not have her man's sperm.

--------------

Kim and Shego had a very quiet ride home. They did not say anything to each other for a long while, silently moving through the house, putting on more comfortable clothing and things. They settled on the sofa, just letting some music play in the background.

"I'm sorry about that," Kim apologized to her wife, as if what happened between them and her friends was somehow her fault.

"It wasn't your fault, Pumpkin," Shego said while gathering her lover up in her arms and holding her in a sweet embrace.

"I didn't think Mo would be so opposed to the idea. I mean, it's not like we're trying to steal Felix or anything. We just…we just want to have a baby…" Kim muttered while curling up into Shego. She felt more hurt than she thought she would at being shot down. It was not so much that they would not get Felix to father the child, but how bluntly Monique had been with her and then had the nerve to tell them to use Josh.

"It's okay, Princess," Shego said while caressing her petite spouse's head. She thought that might comfort the slim scientist. "We could always find another donor," she pointed out.

"I guess. It's just we won't know someone else as well as I know Felix," Kim countered.

Shego could not argue that. Felix had been at the top of their one man list. He was the only guy that they agreed on, but they supposed that he was just too close to them. Shego figured that it was a good thing that she did not ask her brothers or they would have just had to go through the pain of being shot down several more times. At least with Felix, it was just that once. But, for some reason, she did not want to accept that.

They were not going to find someone that measured up to Felix. He was very smart, funny, athletic, good-natured; sometimes, Shego thought that he was like Kim if she had been born a guy. She sighed as she got an idea, a very bad idea in her opinion.

----(New day)

Shego decided to go see Felix at the lab that he now worked at. He had finally gained a grant to research his dream of creating cybernetic parts to take the place of lost limbs. He was getting there little by little and was confident that one day he would achieve his goal. He was surprised when Shego showed up, alone.

"Hey, Shego. What can I do for you?" the brown-haired fellow inquired when she entered his office.

"I'm not here to start anything or bother you or anything like that. I just wanted to explain why we asked you," the pale woman answered.

"Oh," he muttered because he did not know what else to say. He was also rather stunned that Shego was the one doing the explaining.

"We went down a list of guys that we know. We ruled out my brothers because of possible underlying biological problems. We ruled her brothers out because of my own possible underlying biological problems, which is also a reason why we decided that Kim was going to be the one to carry the baby. I don't want naco-boy to be the one to knock her up because I really think something is wrong with him. And all that's left is you. You're all we got, pal."

"But, why me? It seems like I'm just the last guy on the list. I win by default," he remarked with a dry laugh.

"Nah, you didn't win by default. We agreed that you have good genes. You're on Kim's level when it comes to brains, although I've got admit you're just a little saner than she is. You've got a good head on your shoulders common sense wise. Physically fit. No diseases as far as either us know, unless you want to fill me in," she slightly teased him.

"I'm totally healthy thank you very much," he huffed a bit.

"Yeah, and that's why we wanted you. Besides, Kim's comfortable with you and she knows you well, so it made her less nervous about everything."

"She's nervous?"

"Hell, yeah, she's nervous. Carrying a baby isn't some walk in the park. Plus, I'm not going to go through it with her," Shego explained.

"You're not? Why not?" he inquired.

"Weren't you listening? Underlying biological reasons. If the green skin didn't give it away, let me spell it out for you, I'm not normal. So, Kim's going to carry our baby and I'm going to be there for moral support I guess," the pale woman sighed. She wished that she could do more than that, but she really did not want to chance her body harming a baby.

"So, do you have another donor set up?" he asked curiously. He was once again flattered that they had picked him and know why they picked him was only feeding his ego.

"No."

"What are you going to do?"

"Ask you again," she admitted and she would ask him until he agreed or until Kim picked someone else that she was comfortable with that they could agree on.

"What?"

"I don't think she'll do it unless it's you. She doesn't want to carry the kid of some stranger, even though we're going to take care of the kid either way as our own. It's just that she's not very comfortable with all of this," Shego explained. Her princess was trying to be strong, but she could see it in her eyes that she was nervous, maybe even a little scared.

"You sure know how to pressure a guy," he commented with a smile and a bit of a laugh. He rubbed the top of his head and then turned his attention back to her.

"Welcome to my world. She sure knows how to pressure me, but she doesn't even mean it. It's just that I can see it in her eyes and I hate that she's like that. I've got to get that look out of her eyes, man. She would do that for me," she stated.

Felix nodded. "Look, I'd love to help you guys out, but I'm not sure if I'd be able to just look at a piece of myself and act like it's not mine," he informed her.

"It's not yours. It's ours," Shego said plainly.

"Well, you need me to create it," he pointed out.

"It's like you giving us a pen to write a will. Just because you gave us the pen doesn't mean you're set to inherit, pal," she countered.

"You're not making this worth my while," he remarked since she was being such a smartass.

"What if I pay you?" she offered.

"Pay me?" he echoed. She could not be serious, he thought, but her expression was dead serious.

"You name your price and I'll write you a check right now."

"You think you can just buy me off?" he inquired in a rather insulted tone. As if he could be brought to assist a friend.

"What the fuck else am I supposed to do? She asked and you shot her down, so I guess I'll have to use what makes the world go 'round."

"So, what am I supposed to name my price, you write this check, I give you my sperm, and not say a word to my wife?" he inquired.

"You can tell her if you want. I'm just trying to make this as easy as possible for all of us. What the hell do I have to do to get you to agree to this?" Shego asked. She was really ready to go just about anything because Kim was quickly backing away from the idea of them having a baby now. The redhead did not bring the subject up anymore and if Shego even seemed like she was going to approach the topic, Kim would come up with some excuse to leave the room.

Felix sighed and rubbed his head. He would not mind agreeing. He could see that the female couple wanted a child and he would like to help them out. He was pretty sure that he could get over seeing a kid that he knew was his biologically, but was certainly theirs socially. It was just that he did not think that Monique would accept that. She did not seem willing for him to just give his sperm away.

"Monique won't like it," Felix said.

"Well, if you're on board, we can all talk to her. It's not like we're trying to steal you or anything and we're not going to ask anything of you once the kid is born," Shego commented.

"I know that, but she seems really against this. Hell, she seemed offended that you asked me to do it, like you insulted her," he informed the green-skinned woman.

"Well, she should get over it. It's not our fault she picked the good one. Had she taken Ron, we wouldn't even be having this problem," the raven-haired officer remarked with a bit of a laugh.

"I'd have a problem with that. Shit, he wouldn't know what to do with a girl with an ass like that," Felix said.

Shego laughed a bit; yeah, Felix was certainly like a guy version of Kim. At least he seemed to be all right with the idea. That was a step in the right direction, so now they had to get Monique comfortable with the notion of him donating sperm to them.

"I'll talk to Mo. I mean, it's just sperm and nothing more, right?" he asked.

"That's all it is. We don't want an arm and leg or anything from you. Just want to get Kimmie pregnant and that's all," Shego answered.

Felix nodded and they called it a day. He wondered what he was going to say to her to get his wife to understand. He guessed that he was going to have to figure something out, especially by the time he went home. He thought that he had his speech all mapped out in his head until he was face to face with his wife. He completely forgot what he was going to say as soon as he saw her.

"Damn it," he cursed under breath for allowing himself to be intimidated just by the sight of her. She was not even upset with him yet.

"What's wrong, sweetheart?" Monique asked while leaning down to greet him with a kiss. She had heard him swear, even though he had tried to make it inaudible.

"I guess I should just come right out and say it. Mo, I want to help Kim and Shego," he stated. It was all he had left now that he had forgotten everything he was going to say.

"What did you just say?" she inquired, standing back up right. It was something that she did subconsciously when she was angry with him. She stood her full height and loomed over him since he was in the wheelchair.

"I want to help Kim and Shego," he dared to repeat the words.

"No, we talked about this already. You're not giving them your sperm, end of the discussion," she declared.

"No, that's not the end of the discussion. They just want the sperm, nothing else."

"No, I'm sick of Kim always needing something. If she wants to get pregnant, then she needs to go find her own damn man. She shouldn't have married Shego. She chose to get into that and she should accept the consequences."

"Momo," Felix used the pet name that he had for her to get her to calm down some. He thought that she was taking things too hard.

"No, don't 'Momo' me. You're not doing it," she stated soundly.

"Momo, sit back and think about this. It's just sperm. I mean, I know it's mine and everything, but it's not going to be my kid—"

"It will be your fucking kid. It's your fucking sperm!" Monique hollered in anger.

"It would be their fucking kid," he pointed out.

"No, no, no. This is serious bullshit. No other woman is going to have your fucking kid, got it?" she growled.

"Mo, damn it, just listen to me. It's not like I'm cheating on you or anything like that. We're just helping our fucking friend find happiness. Giving her a family with the woman she loves," he stated forcefully. He believed that they should help Kim if they could, just as she would do for them.

"They already have a fucking family."

"Oh, so they should be happy with a part-time son that they can't even keep when they want him? Stop being so selfish," Felix stated.

"What the fuck?" Monique said and she looked extra-offended by that. "I'm being selfish because I don't want you fathering a child by another woman?"

"Damn it," Felix growled in frustration. "Mo, what's the problem really? You can't really be this pissed over just because Kim came to us for something."

"She's always coming to us for help, like whenever she doesn't have money or something. She needs to do something on her own for once."

"You mean like save all of humanity?" he deadpanned.

"You know what, fine. What-the-hell-ever. You want to do this fine. Go ahead and screw Kim," Monique declared while choking back a sob. She put her hand over her mouth.

A bell rang in Felix's mind as soon as those words left her mouth. It would seem that they got to the real underlying problem. Monique was taking the whole thing as if he was going to have sex with Kim.

"Momo, come here," Felix beckoned her in a gentle tone.

"No," she replied while shaking her head.

"Yeah, come here," he said while moving closer to her. The only time that he hated being in the damn chair was when it prevented him from going at Monique like a man with healthy legs could. He could not march up to her with powerful strides and take her in his arms firmly like he knew she needed him to at the moment to be reassuring.

"No," she repeated and she retreated to the other side of the room, but he followed her. He reached out for her and grabbed her, pulling her into his lap. He had her now, even if she wanted to struggle, which she did.

"Mo, I'm not going to have sex with Kim and you know that," he stated in a calm tone.

"Isn't that your fantasy, though?" she hissed.

"To fuck Kim? No, not since the last time I checked. I think my fantasy had to do with you fucking Kim," he remarked with a surprisingly charming smile to go with those words. He was being very honest though; it was something that he would pay to see.

"Why you?" Monique whispered in a bit of a sorrowful tone.

"Well, let's see, I'm smart and I'm good-looking."

"You summed yourself up into two words as to why they want you."

"Well, we could call them and have them explain it. Mo, it's not like I'm going to be going a hot, sweaty round with Kim. I probably go in a room, think about you, shoot off in a cup, and get home in time to play some video games," he explained in a low voice to soothe her nerves.

"You make it sound so impersonal."

"It is. It's got nothing to do with me being with Kim. Maybe you're just mad because they want to have a baby. You want one too?" he asked in a teasing tone while tickling her a bit.

"No! And stop being silly," she ordered while trying to wiggle out of his hold without falling to the floor.

"You okay with this, babe? You know I won't do it if you don't want me to. It's only that Shego said Kim won't do it unless it's me. She's really uneasy about the whole thing. You just have to remember it's their baby, not mine. It's their baby," he said.

"Okay. Okay, I mean, it is just you going in a cup. No contact. It's their baby," she parroted him. He nodded and held her while trying to tell himself that it was just as simple as he made it sound.

--------------

Next time: a problem occurs and Felix can't do what he claims.


	13. Reason Thirteen: Flipflop

I don't own these characters or the original premise behind this saga.

Reason Thirteen: Flip-flop

_It's amazing how emotional invested one can get, especially when you didn't know it was such a big deal in the first place. Well, no, you knew, but you didn't know it meant so much at first. _

Kim was speechless. She could not believe the phone call that she just had. It was a good thing that it was a phone call too because had it been in person, she would have done something inappropriate, like kiss the callers right on the mouths because of her excitement. Felix and Monique had called to let her and Shego know that he would donate sperm for them to have a baby. The redhead could not believe how good that news was.

"Shego!" Kim hollered once her voice decided to return to her.

"What? What? What are you screaming about, you little monster?" Shego inquired as she stepped out of the kitchen, where she baking a cake. She did not have anything better to do and she liked Kim's expression when she saw freshly baked goods. Besides, she thought that it might cheer her spouse up, but it would seem that someone beat her to that if Kim's voice was any indication of her mood.

"He agreed!" Kim yelled as she launched herself at the pale woman. She leaped on Shego, knocking the older woman backwards. Shego fell to the floor since there was nothing to impact behind her and her lover had hit her with a good amount of force.

"Who agreed with what, Princess?" Shego inquired with a cough and a groan thanks to the fall.

"That was Felix and Mo! He's going to give us the sperm and we'll get to have a baby!" the redhead reported with a grin.

Wow, that was great news. So great in fact that she could not think of a response. All she could do was embrace her wife and passionately kiss the amp'ed redhead. Kim accepted the kiss and returned it with just as much passion.

"We're gonna have a baby!" Kim cheered as soon as the kiss was done. She was grinning widely, merrily.

"Calm down, Princess. We still have to get you pregnant and everything," Shego pointed out, reaching up a hand to caress her spouse's cheek.

"Oh, it'll be great. Smiles'll have someone to play with when he comes over. Oh, we'll have a baby. Maybe another son. Maybe a daughter," Kim commented, still smiling all the way through.

Shego laughed a bit. It would seem that neither of them had anticipated how much Kim wanted a child, even though it was had been pretty clear for a few months on how Shego felt about the matter. Kim seemed so much more hyped about it now that it was close to being a reality.

"What are you laughing at? Aren't you happy?" Kim asked because she had expected a bigger reaction out of her spouse.

"You know I am," Shego answered. "But, I think I'll contain it. One of us has to be the adult around here," she teased.

"Being an adult is boring then. Smile for me?" the redhead requested with a rather adorable pout on her face.

The green-skinned woman fulfilled the request and smiled for her mate. Kim went back to smiling and she leaned down for another kiss. They were going to have a baby of their own. They were going to get a chance to be fulltime parents. They both doubted that they could be any happier than they were at the moment.

"Hey, are you making a chocolate cake?" Kim asked curiously when the extremely long and fervent kiss was done and she took note of the smell in the kitchen.

"Yes, I'm making a chocolate cake," Shego answered with an amused look in her eyes. Kim was just too much sometimes, she thought.

----(New day)

Everything was set up and all Felix had to do was what he thought should have been simple. All he had to do was "shoot off in a cup," as he continued to put it. He entered the room that he was led to in order to do his business and things got complicated in his opinion. He did not like the place.

He stared around the room and all of the magazines that were around the place. He frowned as he looked at the covers. He had never seen so many obviously fake breasts in all his life and he was surprised to find himself disgusted. It was not that he was opposed to large breasts, but fakes ones seemed to be his undoing.

He turned away from the magazines and noticed that there was a television set in the room too. He could guess what was going to be on, but he tried it anyway. It might not be so bad, he told himself. He turned the television on and then quickly turned it off; it was full of more huge, fake breasts.

"Shit," Felix muttered. He could have sworn things were going to be easy, but it seemed like he had been being too much of an optimist. "Wait, my trump card," he reminded himself.

The brown-haired young man went into his pocket and pulled out a picture. He had taken it just last night, in case of such an emergency. Monique had been kind enough to pose for him, which he thought was great of her since she still seemed a bit uncomfortable with the whole idea of him donating to Kim and Shego for them to have a baby. He eyed the picture for a few seconds and then sort of panicked because nothing was happening.

Felix was now beginning to think that something was wrong with him. What if he could not do it? Kim and Shego would think that he was playing around with them, toying with their emotions. Kim might give up the idea on wanting a child and it would be all his fault.

What if it was even bigger than that, though, he began to consider. What if it was the start of him never being able to get it up again? What if he would never be able to satisfy his wife again? Oh, god!

Felix reached into his pants' pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He immediately called the one person that he thought would be able to assist him in his current predicament. He looked rather panic-stricken by that time.

"Yeah, baby?" Monique answered the call.

"Baby, I need you to talk dirty to me," he implored her.

"Um…babe, I can't do that right now. I'm about to go pitch designs, remember? How's everything going?" she inquired in a rather caring tone while she was trying to gather up her portfolio folders. She was going to enter an office as soon as she got her husband off of the phone.

"Everything's going wrong! This place is fucking disgusting! I don't think…I don't think I can do it," he admitted in a whisper.

"Oh?" Monique did not mean to sound as intrigued as she did, nor did she mean to sound as hopeful as she did. She knew how much the whole thing meant to Kim and everything, but there was still a part of her that was not ready or wanting in sharing any part of her husband.

"I don't think I can do it. Can you come back and get me now? I need to get out of here," he stated. The room itself was now making him terribly uncomfortable.

"Baby, I've got to do this first. If you wait for me, I'll be there in like half an hour," she informed him.

"Half an hour? I'll take the bus home," he told her.

"It can't be that bad, sweetheart," she argued. Felix hated taking the bus because everything that was involved in it because of his chair. It was one of the few things that made him self-conscious about his condition.

"It is. You haven't seen it. They got all of these disgusting ass magazines with all of these fake tits and now that I think about it, it's got to be filthy. I mean, how many guys were in here before me? How do I know they cleaned everything properly in here?"

"Um…because it's a doctor's office," she answered.

"You can't always trust doctors!" he protested. He could be getting all kinds of germs and things on and in his body just from being in the room, he thought.

"Okay, sweetheart, you're obviously bugging the hell out. Take the bus if you want. I'll see you at home. Call me if you make it through it and want a ride," she told him.

"All right."

The couple disconnected the call and Felix quickly left the room and the office. He just could not take the thought of being there anymore. He was also nervous now that it might have impacted his psyche to the point that he might not even be able to be with his beautiful wife since the room had sucked all of the energy out of the provocative picture that had been for emergencies.

He made himself some tea in the hope to calm his nerves. He waited for Monique to come home, which was not very long after he arrived in. As soon as she was through the door, he was on her, hugging her around the waist. She was a bit stunned by the greeting and was not sure how to react, other than shutting the door behind her anyway.

"You're in a better mood than you seemed to be in about forty-five minutes ago," she commented and then she yelped as his hands went from her waist to her rump, as they had a habit of doing.

"Let's make love," he blurted out.

"What?" she asked because she was pretty sure that she had not heard him right.

"Right now, let's make love," he repeated.

"No, silly. I just got in and I got completely smashed on almost all of my designs. They want me to change almost everything and I've only got a week to do it," she reported with a sigh.

"Momo, you've got to do this for me. I think…I think I might be broken," he informed her.

She made a puzzled face because of his words. "You think you might be broken?"

"Yeah, you know…broken, down there," he said while nodding down for her to get the idea of what he meant.

"Oh. Baby, you're not broken. We both know that."

"No, no, no, I might be. I think that place messed me up. So, could we just make love right now to make sure?" he requested.

Monique laughed a bit; he was being very ridiculous in her opinion. But, she did notice that he seemed rather distressed about everything. She figured that helping set his mind at ease would actually help her too since she was rather crushed that most of her ideas had been dismissed and she had to rework everything in a week.

She leaned down and kissed Felix on the mouth. He pulled her down onto his lap while making sure to keep the kiss going. He also kept his hands on her rear, kneading his favorite of her body parts. It did not take too long for him to realize that he was not broken; it was just that grimy room that bothered him.

--------------

The phone ringing caused Felix to use his easily favorite curse word. "Shit," he muttered because he was startled. The body on top of him was startled too, which caused her to stop moving much to his annoyance. He mumbled his favorite curse again and grabbed the phone from the nightstand. When he saw who was calling, he swore one last time.

"Who is it?" Monique asked because of his reaction.

"Kim or Shego," Felix answered.

"Don't answer it," she suggested.

He decided to follow that notion and not answer the phone. He focused back on his wife while muting the phone to avoid such an interruption again. She leaned down to kiss him and she started moving again.

--------------

"The fucker is not answering the phone," Shego growled in anger while throwing the house phone to the floor in a huff. It luckily was not destroyed on impact.

Kim was sitting on the couch while Shego fumed over the fact that either no one was home at the Renton residence or they were not answering the phone. The redhead was twiddling her thumbs and wiggling her toes while being scrunched up on the sofa. She appeared rather distraught, knowing that Felix had not done what he promised to do.

"Maybe it's better this way," Kim muttered.

"No, Princess, don't talk like this," Shego said as she went over to her disappointed mate and embraced her.

"But, maybe it is. I mean, we're really busy. We probably wouldn't be able to have time for a baby. I mean, I still want to do missions and I've got all this schoolwork all the time and you're always bugging out with work. We don't have time for a kid," the redhead commented.

"Pumpkin, don't talk like that. We're going to have this baby, okay? We are," the pale woman promised.

"How?"

"The way we planned. Felix is giving us that sperm if I have yank his fucking sack off and take it to the doctor's office myself," Shego vowed.

"You can't just hurt my friend like that," the younger female objected.

"Oh, you think I can't? The little bastard gave us his word and he's going to keep it," Shego declared. "Go get dressed."

"What? Why?" Kim asked. It was their day off, so they were both in house clothes.

"Go get dressed," the older woman repeated while climbing to her feet. She would be damned if she was going to let Felix just back out of things now, after her wife had gotten so hyped about having the baby.

Kim did not argue and she went upstairs to change into some proper clothing. Shego was wearing clothes that she felt comfortable enough in to go outside. She picked the phone back up and dialed the Renton home again. No one was answering. All right, fine, she commented mentally.

"I got something for that ass," Shego muttered.

When Kim was dressed, the couple left the house. The olive-eyed scientist guessed where they were going after a couple of minutes in the car, so she did not bother to ask. She was curious as to what her spouse was trying to accomplish, but she figured that she might as well wait and watch everything play out.

They pulled up to the apartment complex that Felix and Monique lived in. Shego parked the car and practically pulled her wife out of the car up to the apartment. She then pounded on the door with almost as much force to knock it over.

"Do not fucking play with me," Shego growled because no one was answering the door.

"They might not be home," Kim pointed out.

"Fine. We'll wait for them and make sure we don't miss them," the emerald-eyed female stated. Kim was not following and then her eyes practically fell out of her head as she saw that Shego was carrying tools with her to break into the apartment.

"Sweetie, what the hell are you doing?" the redhead inquired.

"We should be comfortable while we wait if they want to be so fucking inconsiderate," the pale woman replied. She was rather upset with Felix for ducking out on them and not doing what he was supposed to. He was just a liar as far as she was considered and she did not like that he had lied to her and her lover.

"But, you're breaking in."

"The only way in unless you've got a key you haven't been telling me about and if that's the case, I want to hear the story behind that shit."

"Of course I don't have a key," the scientist pointed out. What the hell would she be doing with a key?

"Well, then, we're going to have to get in the fun way," Shego commented.

Kim did not argue because she knew that her spouse would not listen. Shego worked on the lock and opened the door. They stepped inside and heard the shower going. It would seem that people were home, especially since they could see Felix in the kitchen.

"Son of a bitch," Shego growled and she looked like a vexed tigress.

"Shit," Felix said when he saw the couple. It seemed like he should have stayed in the bedroom for one more minute. "If you give me half-a-minute to live, I swear I can explain what happened," he implored the pair.

"If it doesn't involve the fact that you're not dead, don't worry, I'll correct that," Shego declared while igniting her hands.

"Whoa! Shego, you wouldn't hit a guy in a wheelchair, right?" he commented, even thought he was certain that they all knew the answer to that one.

"You don't know me well then," she informed him with a snarl as she began stalking toward him.

"Shego! Wait, come on!" Felix said while backing away.

"Fuck that!"

"Look, I couldn't do it!" he screamed at the top of his lungs.

"What do you mean you couldn't do it?" she demanded to know.

"What's going on out here?" Monique asked as she joined the commotion, dressed in pajamas that were wet from her shower. She had not dried off as best she could because she wanted to know what was going on outside.

"Hold on," Shego said to Monique without turning her attention completely from the man of the hour, Felix. "Now, explain to me what the fuck you mean you couldn't do it?" the pale woman repeated.

"I just couldn't. I don't know what guy could. That room was gross and the shit in it, grosser still. I just couldn't do it," he explained.

"All you had to do was let go in a fucking cup. Was it too easy or something? Damn it, I bet if some freaky ass calculus problem was involved you could've done that shit, but it was too much for you to just bust in a cup?" Shego huffed.

"The room was disgusting! I might have something just from being in there!" he argued.

"You take your ass back there and you go in that fucking cup!" she commanded.

"Hell, no!"

"Hell, yeah!"

"You two!" Monique hollered to get them to shut up with their pointless argument.

"What?" the two barked back.

"This is obviously not getting us anywhere. Felix didn't like the room and he won't like it no matter what. Maybe you two should just find someone else," Monique stated.

Kim frowned at that suggestion and then suddenly just looked utterly defeated. It was the first time that any of them had seen her appear in such a manner. Gone was her usual confidence, her underlying natural "Kim-ness," and the spark that often made her seemed wired no matter what time of day it was. It was like her soul had been sucked right out of her body.

"Kim?" Felix said because of her expression.

"Let's just forget about it," the redhead dismissed the whole matter and she turned to leave the apartment.

"Princess," Shego called to her mate. "Damn it," she mumbled as Kim dashed out of the apartment.

The pale woman took off after her wife, but the younger woman was the faster one out of the pair of them. She followed Kim down the stairwell, but by the time she hit the street, Kim was gone. She grumbled all sorts of swear words to herself and then decided to go back up to the apartment, probably to take her anger out on that damn reneging scientist.

"Did you catch her?" Felix asked when Shego came back.

"The fuck does it matter to you?" the moss-hued officer snarled.

"I didn't mean to upset her," he argued.

"The fuck do you mean you didn't mean to upset her? You got her hopes up that we were going to have a baby and then you backed out of that shit at the last second. Not to mention, you didn't even bother to tell us that you weren't going to do it. What the hell, man?" Shego said, her voice starting to sound desperate along with angry.

It was starting to hit Shego that she and the love of her life were not going to have a baby. They were so close to having a family and that had been snatched away. They were going to be stuck being part-time parents. She bit into her lip, unable to continue her tirade as the power of that realization overcame her.

"Fuck it," Shego sighed and she just walked out of the apartment. She could not chance shedding tears in front anyone that was not Kim.

"I think I messed up, Mo," Felix muttered. He had never felt so bad about something than he did at the moment, knowing that he had just crushed the dreams of one of his best friends and her wife.

"You didn't do it alone, baby," Monique commented. It had been her words that seemed to be the final nail in the coffin and sent their dear friend fleeing the scene while looking like her world had just come to an end. She doubted that she could have felt any worse about things than if she had just punched Kim in the stomach while she was at it.

"What am I supposed to do, Mo? I can't do it there. That place is just nasty," he stated.

"There are other methods. We'll let them cool off and then talk about it," she replied. Her husband nodded.

--------------

Night set in when Kim entered the house, dragging her body as if she had been beaten by a gang of supermen. The house was totally dark and empty, mimicking how Kim felt inside as far as she was concerned. She made it to the steps before walking just seemed like too much trouble and she collapsed on the stairs, choking back a sob.

She had wanted that baby so badly, she realized. She was aware that she wanted the child, but now that she could not have it, she realized just how badly she wanted it. There had to be someway. There just had to be.

"Princess, you okay?" Shego said as she noticed the lump by the stairs. She had just come in through their back door.

"Shego!" Kim threw herself into her wife's safe arms and proceeded to weep on the older woman.

"It's all right," Shego said in a soothing tone. She was actually glad that the redhead was crying. She preferred that to Kim just bottling it all up. Besides, she had cried on Kim a few times, so it was time for her to allow the same.

"I didn't know it, but I want this baby so badly. I want us to have a baby. I want us to have a family together," the olive-eyed hero bawled.

"I know, Pumpkin. I know," Shego whispered while gently rocking her wife in her arms to comfort her.

"What are we going to do?"

"Well, I guess we could get someone else," the pale woman replied and when she felt her petite spouse go rigid, she knew that she had to add to that one. "Maybe one of my dumb brothers would do it. I mean, maybe it'll work out all right. We are alive, after all, despite the radiation," she commented.

Kim shook her head in a weary manner. She did not want to run that risk. She was tired from the whole ordeal. She could not take the emotional let down again anyway. If Shego's brothers did agree, but ended up doing what Felix did, it would wipe her out. So, she was done with it.

Shego sighed; she did not know what else to do or say. She lifted her smaller wife into her arms and carried her up to the bedroom. She lay down with Kim in her arms and just held Kim through out the night. The redhead only wept.

--------------

The ringing of the phone took Shego out of a dreamless sleep. She jerked up because of the shocking noise and checked on her wife before thinking about the damned phone. Kim was sleeping; her mouth was open slightly and there was evidence of her crying dried on her cheeks. Shego then reached for the phone and caught sight of the clock. She figured that it was probably her boss trying to reach her in order to curse her out since she was not at work yet. She did not bother to look at the caller ID.

"Hello?" she answered the phone in a groggy tone.

"Shego?" Felix's voice came through the receiver.

"What the fuck do you want?" she inquired rather hostilely.

"Look, I'm sorry about yesterday. I should've at least told you guys I couldn't go through with it. I still want to help, though. You just need to tell me what to do and not ask me to go into that room again."

"All you had to do was go in the room."

"I know, but it was disgusting. Imagine being in a gas station restroom, okay? And then imagine having to masturbate in there because that was what it was like to me. I'm not backing out, but we need to come up with another plan here. If you guys are willing to talk it out, I'm still up for donating to you," he explained.

"I'll get back to you on that. I might have a situation thanks to that shit you pulled yesterday," she stated.

"Sorry again," he apologized because he was sorry and he hoped that they knew that.

"Yeah," she practically grunted and then she disconnected the call. She decided to call work just to let Betty know that she was not coming in. She explained that she was as having "a situation" and nothing further. Betty accepted that.

With those things out of the way, she wrapped her arms back around Kim and just held the younger woman. She rested her head on top of Kim's head and kissed Kim's temple. Was she going to tell Kim that Felix called? It would probably drudge up all the suffering that the redhead went through last night and it was possible that Felix might flake on them again. She wanted to chance it, though. He sounded sincere and she wanted a child with Kim.

"I guess I know what I'm going to do then," Shego told herself.

When Kim woke up, Shego did wait for her to get herself together. The redhead cuddled up into the warm body that was her love and sighed because of the secure feeling that swept through her like gentle winds because of Shego's presence. She smiled a bit to herself and silently thanked whatever force it was that dropped her in the lap of Shego.

"Princess, Felix called," Shego replied and Kim went stiff. She tightened her grip on the redhead as she continued on. "He apologized for yesterday and says he still wants to help. We just have to think about a different way to do it than having him in that room," the older woman explained.

"And how are we going to do that?" Kim asked.

"That's why we're going to get together and talk about other options. So, let's get up, take a shower and brush our teeth."

Kim seemed to think about that. "Shower together?" she asked with a pout.

Shego smiled a bit; at least the redhead was acting more normal now. "Sure," she agreed and she leaned down to kiss her little wife.

The couple got out of bed and went to clean themselves up. Shego made sure to be supportive in any way that Kim seemed to need through out the morning, even offering to brush the redhead's teeth for her. Kim declined the offer with a small smile while thinking about just how sweet her lover could be.

Shego did not think about her behavior. She just knew that she had to be there for her spouse because the redhead would be there for her if only the olive-eyed female was not so overwrought. She had not thought that the baby meant so much to Kim until now. She had actually thought that Kim was going through it all for her, but it would seem that the scientist really did want a family as much as she did. It was good to know.

--------------

Kim and Shego sat around Monique and Felix's kitchen counter. The two couples were in Monique and Felix's apartment. They were now trying to figure out how to get Felix's sperm out of his body without him having to go back into the room in the clinic.

"What about if he just did it here? You could pick it up and go to the clinic," Monique pointed out.

"Yeah, sounds good," Felix agreed.

"We'd never make it in time. That traffic is always fucking ridiculous," Shego pointed out. They would only have a limited amount of time to make it to the doctor after Felix gave them his sample and she doubted that they would make it. The traffic into downtown and in downtown was never good.

"Yeah, you're right about that one. What's left?" Monique wondered out loud.

The four of them sat there and tried to think everything over. They were not sure how else they could go about things. Shego ended getting frustrated with the fact that they could not think of anything.

"Damn it, we're making it seem like the easiest way to go about this is to just let him fuck her," the pale woman huffed.

"Whoa," the three friends said because of that declaration.

"I think you're going a bit too far there," Monique commented.

"It was a joke," Shego stated. Like hell she wanted that little lecher touching her little lecher.

"It wasn't funny," Monique said.

Kim and Felix looked at each other. It seemed like they were thinking the same thought. They were just waiting to see which one of them was going to say it first. Kim broke down, feeling she might get in less trouble than her scientist friend if she was the one that said it.

"That might actually be the best way to go about this," the redhead said and that earned her puzzled/incredulous/vexed looks from Monique and Shego.

--------------

Next time: baby making 101.


	14. Reason Fourteen: Ready to go?

I don't own these characters or the original premise behind this saga.

Reason Fourteen: Ready to go?

_We have to draw a line in the sand and define the very meaning of something so intimate, rationalizing it into something impersonal, almost sterile. How much would you do for a friend? _

Shego and Monique were experiencing a number of emotions at the moment, but mostly shock. Shell-shock was definitely reigning supreme in the pair because of what Kim had dared to suggest and Felix had brazenly backed up with a nod. In order to get Kim pregnant, the redhead voiced that the best way to go about it would be for her to have sex with Felix and he agreed. He agreed with anything that meant he would not have to go back to that room in the doctor's office.

"This joke isn't funny," Monique finally managed to say. A surprised and vexed expression was still on her face because she still could not believe what she was hearing, or seeing in the case of her husband nodding. They could not be serious!

"Seriously," Shego concurred. Her expression was almost identical to Monique's.

"I'm not saying it to be funny," Kim admitted, sounding quite normal, which her spouse and good friend could not understand since she was not saying anything normal or even rational in their opinions.

"No way in hell am I letting you and Felix sleep together!" both Monique and Shego huffed simultaneously. It would beyond a cold day in Hell when they allowed that to happen!

"Why not?" Kim asked almost as if she truly did not see the problem, which her friend and her spouse thought was impossible.

"Did she really just ask that question?" Monique asked Shego.

"What the hell do you mean 'why not'? You're just not fucking Felix, end of story," Shego informed her wife in a firm tone.

"But, it makes the most sense and it's the easiest way to go about it. It's a way that Felix is comfortable and it doesn't involve us trying to fly through traffic to get anything to the doctor's office in an impossible time," the redhead explained.

"No, no, no. We're not doing this," Monique said while shaking her head and then she turned to Shego. "Right?" she asked, looking for backup.

"Right," the pale woman replied. They definitely were not doing that.

Felix and Kim looked at each other. They did not know what else to do. Kim sort of sank in her seat. She was out of ideas. Felix was empty too.

"Well, you two think of a way to do this, then," the brown-haired scientist told his wife and Shego. He was not really challenging them because if they had a better way, he was all for it.

Monique and Shego looked at each other. There had to be a way for Felix get Kim pregnant without physical touching being involved, they believed. They just could not think of it considering the fact that they had already gone through all of their ideas and nothing made it passed the "idea" phase.

Shego would have offered that she knew a scientist that might be able to help them out, but there was no way in all of the known universe that she would ever trust DNAmy to do something important for her. She had seen what Amy did in her spare time and really, it bothered her to the point of cringing when she thought about it. Amy was pretty much a sociopath in her opinion. She would not trust Amy to get her a cup of coffee, which was why she had not even approached the round woman to maybe helping her and Kim out in the beginning. After all, Amy probably could have come up with some way for her and Kim to genetically create a child, but she really did not want to trust that kind of thing to Amy, who would have probably looked at the whole thing as a fun science experiment, which Shego did not think was appropriate and it would not have been appreciated.

Scientists fucking with people or animals in some weird way point blank bothered Shego, which she knew stemmed from back when her father allowed her and her brothers to be used to as science experiments back when they first go their powers. She just hated and did not trust science, especially unconventional science, and she was not going to change that for something that was so important to her and Kim. Science had already screwed her over enough in life; it was used almost on a daily basis to try to destroy the city, after all.

Shego and Monique both sighed in the same tired fashion. They just did not have anything else to offer as a solution to their problem. It would seem that it was either all or nothing.

"I don't like this," Monique commented.

"I don't either," Shego concurred wholeheartedly.

"Why? You two worried that we'll like it?" Felix teased the pair. He thought that pointing such a thing out would make them realize how ridiculous that idea was.

Monique and Shego looked away; it would seem that they did not find the notion as ludicrous as he did. Felix and Kim could not believe that their wives thought that they would turn on them. Did their wives really think that they were that licentious? Did they really believe that they would be unfaithful? Wow, it kind of hurt a little bit if that was the case. Their spouses did not trust them. It hurt more than a little; it hurt a lot.

"Look, I know we seem…lusty," Felix started. He guessed that was the word that he was looking for anyway.

"But, we're only that way for you guys, not each other," Kim finished. God, she never even thought of Felix that way and she was not about to start now!

"Definitely not each other," Felix insisted. He had never felt like that about Kim, which he supposed was weird. She was just his science buddy, though like Ron was his video game and monster truck buddy. They just were not people that he thought about sexually.

Monique and Shego appeared skeptical. They silently admitted that their spouses did seem lascivious only when it came to them more often than not. Felix did his best not to look at other women's asses, but it was hard because of the level that he was at thanks to his wheelchair. He mostly focused on his wife's ass, though. Kim actually did not show an interest in anyone that was not Shego and had been that way since about the time that she had known Shego. She was perverted, yes, but it was always directed at her spouse.

"Come on, you guys know us. Would we do anything to screw up what we have with you two?" Kim asked with a pleading look in her eyes for them to understand. After all the work that they had put in to catch two of the greatest women on the planet, would they really just blow it all to hell to be with each other when they did not even like each other in a romantic way? They were so not that stupid.

Kim and Felix looked at their lovers, who stared at the scientists in their eyes. Both scientists were looking as if they were imploring their wives to trust them more than they seemed to be doing. Monique and Shego frowned at the same time, as if they had come to the same conclusion immediately. Their expressions gradually softened until they were looking at the pair of scientists in such a fond, almost sweet manner.

"Damn it," Monique muttered.

"Yeah," Shego agreed, sounding almost depressed.

"Okay, I don't like this idea. I want that to be known," the wavy-haired woman stated soundly.

"I concur," the super-powered officer commented.

"So, we're not going to do this?" Felix guessed with a craned eyebrow.

"No, we can do this. We agreed to help and this is the easiest way," Monique grumbled and she wrapped her arms around Felix, as if to comfort herself. He put his hands on her hands to help make her feel better.

"Shego?" Kim asked curiously.

The green-skinned woman sighed. "Fine. We'll try this…once and hope that's all it takes," Shego replied.

"Shouldn't your doctor be able to help with that?" Felix asked.

"We'll go soon. We'll get in touch with you guys later on about the details and everything. In the meantime, you go to the doctor too and make sure everything is good with you," the pale woman answered.

"All right," Monique and Felix agreed with that. They felt it was a good suggestion, if only to make sure he was potent so they would not have to do things more than once if they did get to do things.

----(New day)

Shego and Monique sighed while sitting at the kitchen counter in Monique and Felix's apartment. They were staring at a bottle of rum that they were trying their best not to open. Their spouses were in the back…making a baby. Or so they thought anyway since that had been in the plan.

Shego had rushed Kim over to the apartment because the redhead was ovulating and they thought it would be easier to get Kim there than to get Felix to their house. There was also the fact that they were trying to do things were Felix was most comfortable, so they went to his home. Kim had seemed nervous when they entered and Felix looked the same, even though he had been warned that they were coming over because it was a prime time for things to happen.

The pale woman reached out for the alcohol and just twirled the bottle a bit. She was damned tempted to take a drink. The idea of someone inside of her Princess, it just was not a pleasant thought. There was also the underlying fear that her admittedly bisexual mate might actually like being with Felix. Monique could relate to that fear.

Monique had always noted how well Kim and Felix got along, usually when they started going on about some science thing that none of their other friends cared about. She thought that there might be more to their connection than bonding over science. Hey, Kim was an attractive young woman and Felix was, well, a lecher for the most part, so she thought that there might be something between them if given a chance. And now, they had that chance.

Monique watched Shego play with the rum bottle and she could guess that the usually confident raven-haired woman was just as nervous as she was. It was little comfort that they both knew Kim and Felix were as anxious as they were. They could not think that far because of how heavy the situation was.

"Should I just open this shit and call it a day?" Shego more wondered out loud than was asking Monique a direct question.

"Fuck it, might as well. I mean, it might help," Monique answered while trying to cease tapping her fingers against the countertop. She was so nervous for two reasons actually; one being that Felix might enjoy himself and the other being that Felix might be too anxious to perform and they would have to go through everything again.

"You know what, fuck that. I don't need my courage to come out of a fucking bottle," the pale woman declared. Her Princess loved her, she told herself over and over again.

"That's bullshit," the younger woman commented with a bit of a laugh.

"We can do this, Mo. Let's think of it as a business transaction or some shit like that. Just anything that makes this shit less personal," Shego offered. If they could just think of it in someway that made it seem frozen and cold, they would not feel sick to their stomachs about everything.

"I don't think things get any more personal than what they're about to do," Monique pointed out, her expression down and her gaze was the same. She found herself utterly fascinated with the kitchen tile on the floor than what her companion looked like.

Shego sighed and nodded; she had a point. "But, it doesn't mean anything for this particular occasion. Ten minutes from now, everything should be over and we can all go back to normal."

"You think so? Kim is going to have Felix's baby—" the younger female tried to argue, but she was quickly cut off.

"It's not his baby. We agreed to it and he even signed the contract stating that he relinquished all parental rights to the kid. It's not his baby. You have to stop thinking of it like that," Shego interjected. It damn sure was not Felix's baby. She was going through all of this madness for her and Kim's baby.

"How can I? He's in there fucking her right now," Monique pointed out as if Shego did not know that. That statement took the wind out of Shego's sails for the moment because now all she could think about was Felix boning her love.

Part of Shego had actually hoped that Felix was unable to perform, assuming that he was paralyzed from the waist down. She thought of that he was paralyzed from the waist down because he was confined to his wheelchair, but Kim had explained that he was not paralyzed due to a spinal injury to take all the movement away from below his waist. As far as Kim knew, Felix suffered from great nerve damage in his lower legs and feet due an electrical accident at his mother's lab when he was a child and touching things that he was not supposed to.

So, it would seem that Felix was able to perform, which Shego had already figured, but she still had the hope. She really did not want someone else touching her spouse. Kim was hers and that was that, but she supposed that she needed to make some concessions if she wanted a baby. And she really wanted a baby. With luck, they would only have to go through it once.

"Are you sure you don't want to crack that open, just a little bit?" Monique inquired, referring to the bottle of rum. She did look up to glance at the liquor.

"No, we're going to bear this. We can. Surely, they'll be done in a few minutes," Shego replied in a strong tone. Their spouses had already been in there for few minutes, after all.

--------------

Kim and Felix doubted that they would or could ever feel any more awkward than they did at the moment. They were sitting on the bed, not looking at each other, not touching each other. They both did not even notice that they were breathing as if they were hyperventilating. It would seem that it was not going to be as easy as they both assumed it would be.

They supposed that they both had looked at the situation in a scientific manner rather than a realistic manner. They seemed to think that they were going to come in, proceed as if the act was some sort of math problem, and then be on their merry way. They only now knew how foolish that plan was. They had both skipped the most important part when they were thinking about it like that; they had failed to include the fact that Felix was going to have to penetrate her.

They both let out long exhales before turning to each other. They forced themselves to keep eye contact before willing themselves to inch closer to each other. Once they were sitting side by side, they felt like they had made the most progress that they would that day. That was not good.

"Um…so what should we do now?" Felix asked curiously. He knew for a fact the many things that he could not do because Shego had laid down plenty of rules as soon as they agreed how they were going to go about things. He was not allowed to touch any body part of Kim that was not necessary, comment on any part of Kim, and he was pretty sure that if he so much as made her moan, he was as good as dead.

"I don't know," Kim admitted. She had rules that she had to abide by too and they were pretty much the same as his. The shared rules also included neither of them taking their shirts off, no kissing, and Shego had added something that just baffled both of them commanding that Kim keep her socks on. They did not mind the rules because they did not plan on breaking any of them, but the regulations did add to the anxiety they felt.

Felix guessed that he should have brought something for the occasion. He had thought that it would be easy, though. After all, a pretty girl in front of him that wanted him to screw her should have been enough for him, but it was not anything at all. He was too nervous. Besides, the pretty girl was not his wife.

All he could think about was the pressure on him to perform. He was the only person that Kim was willing to allow to impregnate her. If he screwed up again, she might give up altogether and not have offspring, which would crush her and Shego. He did not want to be responsible for ruining their dream.

Another thing that made him nervous was that sleeping with Kim might ruin his relationship with Monique. She already thought that he had a crush on Kim and it was his fantasy to sleep with her, which was not true, but he doubted that he could get that idea out of her head. He did not want her always looking at him after the fact, wondering if he had enjoyed being with Kim and would try it again. She might like to know that he could not even do it a first time.

Kim was of like mind in thinking about all the relationships that could be ruined with the one act that they had to do. She could mess up her relationship with Shego, but also her friendship with Monique and with Felix. Maybe it was not worth it. Maybe she and Shego should just adopt, she told herself.

"You know, Felix…maybe we should just forget this," Kim proposed in a low, almost shaky voice.

"You think? Are you sure?" he asked curiously.

"Maybe it's just not worth it," she muttered. It was clear that she did not believe it, but she was throwing it out there and giving him a chance to just back out. They could go back to normal and nothing would be ruined.

"Kim, it is worth it. I can see it in your eyes, hear it in your voice, and just tell that it is. You want to have a baby and have a family with Shego, which is totally fine. I don't know what you're so nervous about or why you're acting so willing to just let this go, but I can't let you do it. So, we're going to make it through this. So, hero, tell me what to do," Felix said soundly. He was going to keep his promise and he was going to help Kim and Shego out.

"I don't know what to do. I mean, we didn't think this through totally. We didn't bring anything and apparently, you don't have anything either," the redhead pointed out.

"No…I honestly didn't think this would be so hard. What the hell are we going to do? It's not like you're going to be ovulating forever," he said.

"Wait," the redhead said suddenly. She just got an idea that she was pretty sure would work.

Kim got up and exited the bedroom. Felix was confused. Was she leaving anyway? Maybe she was going to go and they would have to wait until the next time that she was ovulating. He sighed; he did not want to have to go through feeling so anxious and awkward again.

The olive-eyed scientist walked out into the kitchen area and saw her friend and her spouse still staring at the bottle of rum. She could guess what was going through their minds just from the down expressions that were on their faces. She cleared her throat to get their attention, which worked. They turned to see her.

"What's up, Princess? You're done?" Shego asked in a bit of a shaky tone.

"No. We sort of need you guys' help," Kim confessed in an uncomfortable tone. It sort of seemed like a weird thing to say.

"You need our help?" Monique echoed with a puzzled expression gracing her chocolate features. Was it Kim's new hobby to just say dumb shit?

"What kind of freaky shit are you two trying to do?" the pale woman inquired, not that she really wanted to know.

"We're not trying to be freaky," Kim huffed in an offended tone. They were not trying anything at all.

"Then what do you want?" Shego asked in a confused tone.

"This is just a little harder than we thought it would be, so we need….help," the redhead repeated and she made a motion with her hands to emphasize what she was trying to say.

"You're kidding, right?" Monique asked with a deadpan expression.

"It's either you help or we'll have to come back another time with some stuff to make this all a bit easier," Kim explained.

"Unbe-fucking-lievable," Shego muttered. "Well, look, I don't want to go through this more than once, so let's get moving."

"You're kidding?" Monique asked.

"Do you want to have to sit through this again? Except knowing that they're watching porn or something together too?" Shego countered.

Monique shuddered in disgust at the thought. They really did need to just do it and be done with it. Besides, part of her was pleased to know that Kim did not turn her man on and he needed her to do it. So, Monique climbed to her feet and started walking toward the bedroom.

"You guys are utterly hopeless, you know that?" Shego said to her spouse.

Kim only smiled; the teasing helped ease the tensions tightly curling through her body as if she was being constricted by a python. It made things seemed more normal than they were. Shego stood up and looked down at the smaller female. Kim then practically leaped in for a kiss, which Shego returned. They both tried to just focus on the embrace rather than what was going to come soon.

"Hey, you two," Monique called out to the couple.

Shego sighed in a frustrated tone. "What?" she inquired.

"Come in here and do that. It might help him and we can do this faster," Monique pointed out.

"She might actually be the real genius among you lot," Shego teased.

Kim made a face, but she did not argue. Hell, with an idea like that, Monique was the practical genius among them if nothing else. So, she and Shego moved into the room and stood where Felix had a good view of them. They then went back to kissing, among other things, while Monique tended to him in other ways.

Felix could not believe what was happening to him and the crazy thing was that he was not responding immediately. Monique, who he believed was the sexiest creature ever made, was touching him with her hands and mouth, and he had a lesbian couple going at it right in front of him. But, the pressure of why it was happening was still bugging him. At least he was pretty sure that he was not going to get into any trouble when everything was over since Monique was helping now.

"Is he ready yet?" Shego inquired after a few minutes. She did not like putting on a show for a guy that she was so certain was a pervert.

Monique just held up her hand. She was trying her best to make it so all Kim had to do was climb on him and that would be the end of everything. He seemed to pick up on that and he was all right with that idea. He just hoped that they could all move fast enough for that to happen, although he had to remember that Kim could do anything.

"Oh god," he groaned. "Okay, okay, okay!" he told his wife in a panic, praying that he was warning her early enough.

"Kim," Monique called while backing away from her husband.

Shego released Kim while Monique moved out of the way. The redhead was already lacking pants, so she just crawled onto Felix. Shego seemed rather interested in what was going to make sure that everyone was following the rules that had been established, so she watched the two scientists as things progressed.

"Hey, hey, hey, watch those hands," the emerald-eyed female ordered when she noticed Felix moving to take hold of Kim's waist.

"Don't make him nervous," Monique admonished the pale woman, although that had been one of the rules that she had agreed with when they were establishing things.

"What? We agreed no touching," Shego huffed and Monique decided to pull her out of the room.

Monique had planned to leave the room anyway as soon as the pair got together. She had no desire to see her husband screwing another woman, even if it did not mean anything. Shego felt the same about her wife screwing someone else, but she would have preferred to stick around and make sure that they obeyed the rules that had been set down. Still, she did not put up much of a fight as Monique pulled her out of the room.

--------------

"I've got to admit, that didn't even feel like sex," Felix commented with a bit of a laugh. It might have had something to do with the fact that it had lasted all of ten seconds. He was pulling his shorts up, as they had just been resting around his ankles before. He was glad that he did not feel nervous anymore. He was also pleased that everything went really quick for them to avoid feeling awkward.

"Thanks. You sure know how to make a girl feel special," Kim remarked with a laugh of her own as she put her clothes back on. She agreed with him, though. It had not felt like sex in the slightest to her.

"Well, you know I do try," he riposted, wearing a comical smile.

"Felix," Kim said in a little bit of a serious tone. "Thank you for this. I really do appreciate it," she said.

"I know you do. I hope it worked…although, if it didn't, would I get another look at you and Shego doing that thing against the wall again?" he inquired with a lecherous wiggle of his eyebrows.

"You're so nasty," Kim replied with a playful smile. She wished that he had not said if it did not work, as it seemed like a way to jinx things. She hoped that he had not jinxed it because there was no way that she could go through it all again.

"I'm nasty? I wasn't the one getting freaked against a wall," he retorted.

"Well, the bed was occupied," she countered.

"Don't try to blame me."

The two scientists laughed a bit. They looked at each other and they realized that everything was all right between them; it had been sort of like a math equation, they guessed. There was no passion or heat, just a calculated act; sure, it was poorly calculated and done more by trial and error, but it was still like math. They smiled because of that. They did not even need to ask if they were still cool; they just knew because of that exchange.

"Give a guy a push out there?" Felix requested.

"No problem," Kim answered.

The blue-eyed young man made his way into his wheelchair and Kim pushed him out of the room. They went right to their spouses, who were stunned that they were done already. Monique and Shego had hardly been sitting for a couple of minutes; little did they know, but Kim and Felix had spent most of that time getting dressed and talking with each other.

"Um…you guys done?" Shego inquired, trying her best to sound normal.

"Yes, we are," Kim answered.

"So, you guys want to go out and do something?" Felix inquired, as if everything was totally fine because for him, so far everything was fine. After all, he was more than likely not in trouble, he and Kim were still friends, and he probably helped a hero-in-need.

"How about tomorrow?" Shego replied because she did think that they all needed to get over what just happened, at least a little bit. She wanted to be alone with Kim for a while anyway.

"Yeah, that sounds better," Monique concurred. She would like to be alone with her husband for a while and try her best to not think about everything that happened.

Felix just shrugged and watched as Kim left with her wife. He turned his attention to his wife. He went over to her and hugged her around the waist to reassure her that everything was all right with him and he hoped that things were the same with her.

"As weird as today was, we did a really good thing, Momo," Felix assured his spouse. They had done an excellent thing in his opinion. They had had helped a friend who they knew would do anything for them, so it was nice to show that they would do anything for her.

"I'm sure we did. Um…is everything all right?" Monique inquired in a slightly insecure tone. She wanted to ask that in a different manner, but she did not want to come right out and say what was on her mind.

"Everything is all right. I don't know if you believe me or not, but I hope you do. You're the only one for me and I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to stay with you for the rest of my life if you just let me. I love you deeply and dearly and I always will. And I will only love you in that manner, no one else," he announced.

Monique was touched by those words, even though he declared his love for her at the least weekly. It was just that he sounded as sincere as always and she did believe him. It let her know that what he did with Kim was meaningless as far as passion went. It was just a favor for a friend, like he had promised it would be. She really did not know how he managed to keep his word, but she was so happy that he did.

"Baby, you know I always believe you…well, almost always," she replied with a smile.

"Eh, good enough," he answered with a shrug and a smile of his own. "So, are you going to kiss me or am I going to have to get out of this chair to get it?" he inquired. She laughed a bit and then leaned down to give him a kiss.

--------------

"So…do you think it worked?" Shego asked Kim on the ride home. She was not sure what else to say. She was more uncomfortable with the situation that had just occurred than she thought she would be. She hoped that that would pass soon and she hoped that they did not have to go through that again.

"I hope it did," Kim answered while rubbing her stomach. She then grinned at her wife, hoping that it would help get everything back to normal.

Shego smiled a bit too. "I do too." Even though she was uncomfortable with what happened, she did hope that it worked.

"I love you," Kim seemed to come with that one out of the blue.

"I know. I love you too," Shego said in a bit of a confused tone. She did not see why her mini-monster was making such declarations.

"I never want to be with anyone else, just you. So, you don't have to think about today ever again."

"I'm not thinking that you might cheat on me or anything," Shego argued. Yes, she was thinking that Kim might leave her or at least cheat on her because of what happened. It was just something weird to see her Princess riding someone.

"You shouldn't. By now, I figure you should know that I'll always be here for you, no matter what. I always want to be with you, now until forever," the redhead stated.

Shego nodded and she turned to look at her wife, just to remind herself who she was married to. Kim was the sweetest, most honest, and most loving person that she had ever met. Throughout all of their time together, all the young woman did was to stick by her side no matter what and try to make her happy in life and she did that very well. She was doing it at that very moment actually. Kim would do anything for her, she reminded herself, which included being her pet. That was a lot in her opinion and she doubted that she could get rid of Kim now when she could not get rid of her back then.

Shego reached over and caressed her wife's cheek. Kim smiled and turned a bit to kiss Shego's palm, which caused the raven-haired woman to smile too. She had to learn to stop worrying so much, Shego told herself. It was silly for her to think that Kim would do something to jeopardize their relationship, not after all that she had put Kim through just for them to be together. They were going to be fine, she told herself. They might also be a family if everything had gone as it should.

----(New day)

Felix was relaxing on his sofa, playing some video games to unwind, which was a habit of his still; hell, he still even played them with Ron most of the time. Monique came out and joined him after she finished up some work that she had to get done. She leaned against him before just pretty much lying on him, which he did not mind, loving her body contact. He was glad he was playing an RPG, though because if it was any other kind of game, she would have missed him up because she had pushed his arm.

"Felix, what do you think about having a baby?" Monique asked curiously while wrapping her arms around him. She caressed his side since her hands were there. She was happy that everything was all right between them because she loved him so much and she did want to spend the rest of her life with him.

"Mo, we've been through this. It's not my baby. Besides, we don't even know if it worked yet," Felix replied. He figured that Kim would call them with news, but he had not heard from her yet, so he assumed that she was being her usual busy self and did not know if her status had changed. He hoped for the best, though.

"I don't mean that," she informed him, sounding a bit amused.

Felix looked confused and glanced down at his wife. "Then what do you mean?" he asked curiously because as far as he knew, he was not going to be having any kids.

"You're so clueless sometimes, baby," she answered with a laugh. He was too smart for his own good because things just went by him, she thought.

"What? What did I do?" he asked, truly perplexed now.

"Pause the game," she instructed him.

Felix did as he was told and paused the game. He turned his attention to Monique, who took his hand. She placed his hand on her stomach. It took him a second, which she knew it would. And she could tell the exact moment that the realization hit him because his eyes widened as if he had just witnessed aliens landing. She wanted to laugh at his expression, but she controlled herself and held it in.

"I'm going to take your expression as approval," Monique commented with an amused smile. Felix just nodded because his voice was failing him at the moment. It would seem that he had better start thinking about having a baby and being a father.

--------------

Next time: so, did it work?


	15. Reason Fifteen: Incorrect data

I don't own these characters or the original premise behind this saga. I also don't own the Teen Titans.

Reason Fifteen: Incorrect data

_Don't let me fail you when you need me so desperately. I'd never be able to forgive myself._

Kim sighed. All of her friends were having babies now and she was not sure if she was going to be with them in that. She was happy for them, of course. But, it also made her feel like the odd man out again. She supposed that she should be used to it, but she did not want to be left out of the current trend that was happening amongst their little clique.

Yori was now due in a couple of months. Felix was joking that Ron and Yori were being blasphemous because the doctor was telling that they might have the baby on Christmas; Ron commented that Felix was the last person that call someone blasphemous. Yori hoped that she did not go into labor on Christmas because she liked celebrating the holiday, especially with her husband.

Kim went out with Yori and Monique when they went shopping for baby clothes and things that Yori felt that she needed that had not been supplied for her in her baby shower. The ninja had hardly noticed what she got for the shower anyway because her sister had made the flight to Go City for the little party and that visit got Yori's complete attention for the weekend. Yori especially liked that her big sister gushed over her and her condition.

The redhead felt just a little awkward when she was out with her two female friends while they were picking stuff out for babies because she was the only one not picking things out. She was starting to think that her time with Felix had not worked. Maybe there was something wrong with her, she considered. Obviously there was nothing wrong with Felix since Monique was pregnant.

--------------

"Pumpkin, are you going to get off of the couch sometime soon?" Shego inquired, sounding somewhere in between concerned and annoyed. The question came out because her petite lover had been lying on the sofa all day, eating cookies to make matters worse. She looked so pathetic.

"No," the redhead grumbled.

"Why not? Why don't you go hang out with your friends?" Shego suggested. There had to be something that would get the younger female off of the couch, she thought.

"I don't want to hang out with my friends," she replied in mumble while hugging a throw pillow to her chest.

Shego sighed and rolled her eyes. "Okay, fine. Then why the hell didn't you go to work?" she asked.

"I didn't want to," Kim muttered again while turning her back to her spouse and curling into the sofa back. She had missed work for the first time without a mission being involved and she really did not care. She did not want to leave the house anymore. She did not want to get off of the sofa ever again.

"What's wrong, Princess?" Shego inquired while sitting down on the couch and reaching out to softly caress her wife's thigh. She now sounded totally concerned because she did not understand her mate's behavior.

"Nothing."

"Yeah, I'll believe that tomorrow. Right now, I'm believing that there's something wrong and you're going to tell me what it is. So, start spilling the beans, cupcake," Shego ordered in a gentle tone to get the redhead to talk.

Kim pouted a bit, but she easily caved in. She turned around and crawled over to her spouse. She lay down in Shego's lap and curled up into the pale woman's abdomen. Shego looked down at her petite wife and then began caressing Kim's head for her while wondering what it was that was making Kim seem so depressed.

"I think I'm…well, I think something's wrong with me," the hero reported in a sorrowful tone.

"Something's wrong with you?" Shego echoed. Boy, that covered a lot of ground considering some of the hobbies her mate had. "What kind of something is wrong with you?" she inquired in a soft tone. Maybe now was not the time to tease her lover, she considered, which was why she went with the tender tone and easy question.

"How come everyone is having a baby but me? I'm such a failure! I can't do anything right," the redhead lamented.

Shego was surprised by those words. She was rather unaccustomed to dealing with an insecure monster; at least unconfident when it came to things other than Shego anyway. She did not think about that. She knew what she was going to say.

"Princess, you're the woman that can do anything, first of all—" Shego said and her wife cut her off.

"Except get pregnant," the olive-eyed scientist sniffled.

"Monster, it's only been a few weeks. You don't know if you're pregnant or not. I bet you are. I bet you're growing our very own bump this very moment," Shego commented while reaching down to rub her spouse's belly.

"I'm not. I know I'm not. We're never going to have a baby."

"Don't talk like that," the pale woman said while shifting Kim in her arms, so now she was cradling her petite lover. She then nuzzled her face into the younger female's neck, hoping that the intimate contact would help set Kim at ease.

"We're not," Kim mumbled.

"We are. We're going to have a baby, a little boy or girl. We're going to love the kid just as much as we love Smiles and take care of the kid just like we do with the gremlin. So, stop being down about it. We're going to have this baby. Okay?" the green-skinned woman said soundly and her wife only made a noise, which she did not know if it was an agreement or not. "Hey, you speak English in this house and repeat after me, we're going to have this baby," Shego stated firmly.

"We're going to have this baby," the younger woman muttered.

"Say it like you mean. We're going to have this baby," Shego said in a strong tone.

"We're going to have this baby," Kim said again, a bit stronger than before.

"Again."

"We're going to have this baby."

"One more time."

"We're going to have this baby."

"Because we are. We're going to have a baby and go through all of the stuff that other parents go through. We're going to raise a wonderful kid that knows how to kick ass and has common sense…and maybe a little insanity since you're around," Shego teased.

Kim chuckled just a little bit. Okay, if Shego believed that they were going to have a baby, she could believe again too. They were going to have a baby and they would have a family. Todd would get to be a big brother and they would get to be mothers. It would be perfect, she silently promised herself.

Shego continued to hold her distressed imp, occasionally snuggling into Kim's neck to keep her calm. She was confident that they were going to have the baby, but she figured that they just had to give it some time, which was odd for her since she was typically impatient. Still, she had found the one thing that she could wait for because she felt beyond confident that they were going to get what they wanted.

----(New day)

Kim had gotten out of her bit of sulking and was back to her usual energetic self. In the back of her mind, she still considered that she probably was not pregnant. She did not feel any different and it had been over a month. She was starting to think that she might have to do it again with Felix and it was not something that she was looking forward to. It was not even something she was sure Shego and Monique would allow to occur a second time. The first time was probably their only chance and she had managed to blow it.

She doubted that there was a way, but she was going to try to make it up to Shego. She guessed that supplying her beloved with a great set of Christmas gifts would be the way to start; Christmas was just over a month away. She had plenty of money for the holiday season now.

She had been putting her whole check away in the bank since before summer began. She put half of her money away for Todd and the other half was supposed to go for the new baby, the one she was certain that they were not having. She went to the mall and found herself unable to spend that money. Instead, she had to rush home because she was overcome with emotion.

It was not fair! All she and Shego wanted was a family of their own. Yes, they had Todd, but they had to share him. They wanted a child all their own, but it would seem that they were not going to get one. It just was not fair, she silently lamented.

Kim made it home and fell back against the front door. She wrapped her arms around herself while sliding pathetically to the floor. Why did it hurt so much, she wondered. Why was there such a sharp agony going through her for something that she did not even have, something that she never had? It was not like she lost the baby or something like that. She just never had one.

"Princess?" Shego said as she poked her head out of the kitchen, which was down the hall. She spotted her fallen lover on the floor before Kim had a chance to scurry to her feet and pretend that everything was all right. "Kimmie, what's wrong?" the pale woman inquired in a concerned tone as she exited the kitchen.

"Oh, Shego. I didn't know you were home already," the redhead said, hoping that she was speaking in her usual tone. She sounded rather down and out, though.

"It's seven," Shego pointed out. Of course she would be home by then or she would have called Kim to say otherwise.

"Is it?" Kim had obviously not been paying attention to the time for the day and it did not help matters that she had had a mission that day.

The super-powered woman sighed and sat down next to her spouse. She was not surprised by how depressed Kim seemed. The redhead had only seemed genuinely joyful lately when Todd was around. She had been too adorable with their son on Halloween, dressing up as Starfire from Teen Titans while he was dressed as Robin; he loved that cartoon and the comic books. And then there had been a few days ago when they went to Middleton for Thanksgiving where they got to get glared at by Kim's grandmother and Todd got to blow things up with the tweebs and his grandfather.

Thanksgiving had actually been a strange thing because Shego had expected to get screamed on by her mother for having the nerve to go to the Possible house for Thanksgiving when she never dared go to the Gooding home no matter the holiday, but that had not happened. Her mother postponed the Gooding holiday celebration for two days, giving Shego, Kim, and Todd time to hang out with the Possible family, but still make it to the Gooding home because Isabel wanted to see the little family. They had made it and Isabel seemed to practically float on air when they came around, which of course, got on her daughter's nerves.

"Princess, I've got something for you," Shego said while putting her arm around the smaller female.

"Yeah?" Kim asked in a low voice. "What?"

Shego went into her pocket and pulled out a box that Kim was only vaguely familiar with. To make matters worse, the only emotion that she could associate with the item was sheer panic and terror. She looked at her green-skinned wife as if the older woman had just given her a gun to go shoot herself.

"Shego," Kim said in a trembling voice.

"You've been worrying about things and all this nonsense, but I think you missed something," the pale woman commented, smirking slightly because of her pun.

"I missed something?" Kim echoed.

"Yeah, you definitely missed something," Shego replied.

"No…I've always been kind of irregular. It comes whenever it feels like it," the redhead pointed out, getting the pun now.

"Kimmie, it's been well over a month. No one is that irregular. Go and see," Shego gently urged her younger lover.

"But—" Kim tried to argue, but she was cut off.

"Just go and see. I want to know and I know you want to know."

Kim sighed. She did want to know. She took the box, which was a pregnancy test, and marched upstairs toward the bathroom, as if she forgot that they had a bathroom on the ground floor too. Shego went up after her, but made sure to go slow. She wanted to give Kim some space and time to herself. She did park herself outside of the bathroom door, which was closed and stayed that way for over ten minutes.

Shego was anxious. She had experienced anxiety a few times in her life, mostly involving situations with Kim or her mother. There was a good anxiety, expectation, and a bad anxiety, fear. She was not sure which one she was experiencing at the moment, but she was pretty sure that it was a mixture of both because she had no clue which way things were going to go.

She found herself crossing her fingers, even though she never understood the gesture completely. She knew that some people did it for luck and others did it to jinx people and others did it just so they did not have to keep their word. It seemed like such a versatile gesture, but right now all she wanted was for it to help grant her spouse peace of mind.

The door to the bathroom cracked open slowly, which drew Shego out of her thoughts. She turned her attention to the small opening, wondering its meaning. Was she meant to enter or was her wife going to come out? She peered into the void, seeing the bathroom as a narrow world because of it.

"Kimmie?" Shego called, but she did not get an answer. "I'm going to come in, okay?" she informed the redhead.

The older woman pushed the door open and saw Kim on the floor with her back again their circular bathtub. The hero had her head down, but it was clear that she was weeping. Shego's heart felt like it sank into her feet while it seemed her stomach was trying to relieve itself of a meal she had not even eaten yet.

Shego had to force herself to approach Kim, actually silently ordering her feet to move when they did not do so automatically. She sat down next to Kim and put her arms around the crying female. The redhead moved to where she was weeping on her lover.

"It's all right, Kim. It's all right. We can…always try again," Shego said through gritted teeth. She did not even want to think about Felix doing what he and Kim did again. She did not like the idea of someone else touching her wife and she knew that Monique did not like the idea of Felix sleeping with Kim anyway.

Kim muttered something, speaking into Shego's collar bone. It did not sound like she was speaking English; a bad habit of hers lately in Shego's opinion. There was always the chance that Kim was not speaking English, but it was not very likely; the petite hero could speak several languages, after all. It was irksome to Shego, even though she spoke more than one language herself; it was part of the baggage that came along with being her mother's child and as well traveled as she was.

"It's okay, Pumpkin. It's really okay," Shego said as reassuringly as possible. She rubbed her lover's back and held her as if it was the only thing that she knew how to do in life.

Kim sniffled and looked up at her spouse since it was clear that speaking into Shego's skin was not getting her thoughts across. Shego reached up a hand to wipe away for her love's tears. Kim then did something that surprised Shego; she smiled.

"Why are you smiling?" the green-skinned female inquired in a confused tone.

The redhead sniffled some more. "No more tries," she replied.

"Huh?" Shego was not following.

"We don't have to try again."

Shego shook her head. She still was not following. Why did they not have to try again? Was Kim giving up? If that was the case, what was she smiling about?

"I'm pregnant, honey!" Kim screamed with joy as she threw her arms around her spouse and embraced her tightly.

"Wait, what?" Shego inquired, still confused out of her mind. She had not expected that response, which was why she was so puzzled.

"I'm pregnant!" Kim declared again and she began crying again, but now Shego knew that they were tears of joy.

Shego was a little choked up herself. Kim was pregnant? They were going to have their own family. They were going to get to be fulltime parents. She felt…she did not even know what she felt like. It was almost as if she was ready to jump out of her skin because of her elation. She embraced her wife tightly and tried her best to not join Kim in bawling her eyes out. She did lean down and place a gentle kiss to Kim's lips to express her happiness with their circumstances.

----(New day)

Kim's pregnancy was confirmed by their doctor and the first thing that she wanted to do was tell her parents. Shego had to stop her because she had learned from what happened earlier in the year. She proposed that they do a conference call, having Kim's parents and her mother on the line at the same time to all hear the news at the same time. Kim thought that was a great idea, especially since she did not want to see her spouse get into trouble.

"Okay, everybody there?" Kim asked over the speakerphone to make sure all three parents were there.

"Yes, Kimmie, we're here," Ann replied.

"I'm here too," Isabel affirmed.

"Good. Okay." Kim took a deep breath and then she turned to Shego, who was sitting right next to her on the couch. "Do you want to tell them or should I? Or maybe we can do it together," the redhead proposed.

"No, no, no. You go ahead and tell me. I just want it on the record that I am here," Shego announced, which was directed toward her mother. She just wanted to make sure that demon woman stayed wherever the hell she was located and she did not have to get yelled at again.

"We already know that, firefly," Isabel commented, trying her best not to laugh. She was barely succeeding, but her tone let her daughter know that she wanted to laugh.

Shego sucked her teeth. "Just shut up and listen," she replied with as much attitude as she could muster while declaring in her mind that she was not afraid of her mother.

"Don't get fresh, firefly. I've got spare time," Isabel informed her daughter. The green-skinned woman only made a face, which she knew was pointless since her mother could not see her indignation.

"Isabel, scare Shego some other time, so we can get the news," Ann suggested.

"I'm not scared of her!" Shego hollered into the speaker. What the hell?! Who thought she was afraid of that blasted old woman! She was not afraid of anything and if Isabel was there right now, she swore that she would punch the older female right in the mouth to prove how brave she was.

"What about if I tell you I'm outside your door right now?" Isabel inquired.

Shego turned her attention to the front door, which could be seen from the living room. She was at the most ninety-five percent sure that her mother was not outside right now. It was the minor five percent chance that had her heart in her throat, though. What if that demon was out there right now, lurking like a gypsy curse? She would have to deal with her again and then her thoughts were broken as Kim began laughing.

"Shut up and tell them the news," Shego said to her spouse since she knew why Kim was laughing. The panicked look in Shego's emerald eyes was priceless as she watched the door like an alert sentry at a fort.

"Okay, okay, okay. Ladies and gentleman, we're going to have a baby!" Kim practically cheered into the phone.

"A baby?" all three parents echoed.

"Yes, a baby," Kim repeated. She was wearing a rather proud grin, even though Shego was the only person that could see and she had been seeing it ever since Kim took the pregnancy test a few days ago.

"When you say 'a baby' what do you mean?" James inquired.

"What the hell? She means a baby. Kimmie is pregnant," Shego replied in a bit of an irked tone. It was like their parents were acting like they did not know what a baby was.

There was a moment of silence. The Possibles dared wonder if there was something that they did not know about Shego while Isabel wondered how Kim got pregnant. It would seem that all three of them found the safe question to get their answers.

"Who's the father?" the parents asked.

"There is no father," Shego answered as if that was biologically possible.

"No father?" James echoed in a puzzled voice.

"What we mean is who donated sperm to impregnate Kim? One of your brothers?" Ann offered to clean up the inquiry and hopefully get a response.

"What the hell does it matter? We're having a baby. Now, you guys can either be happy or I can hang up the fucking phone and go start dinner," Shego informed them.

"Firefly, we are happy, of course," Isabel said. They were happy over Todd, so why would they not be happy in hearing that they were going to have another grandchild soon? It was just curiosity that made them ask about the father. They were all in uncharted waters, after all.

"You don't sound happy. We don't need this shit, you know," the super-powered woman huffed.

"Sweetheart, calm down," Kim said.

"No, fuck that. We call to share joyous news with them and they ask some old bullshit question like that. Fuck that," Shego declared.

It was clear from the sound in Shego's voice to the parents that they had accidentally broached a very sensitive subject with the green-skinned woman. Kim was pregnant and it was evident that Shego had not been the one that put her in such a way. The couple more than likely did not want to focus on the conception, but the condition itself, which was the truth of the matter. It still was an odd thing.

"What is she getting mad about?" James accidentally asked into the phone.

Shego frowned, growing angrier by the second. She tore herself from the sofa because she knew that if she sat there a little longer, she would have cursed all of their parents out, which would not do anyone any good. Kim sighed because everything was going perfectly wrong.

"We'll call you guys back," Kim informed the parents and she disconnected the call to go after her spouse. "Sweetie, they didn't mean anything by it," she called up the stairs because Shego had retreated to the second floor.

"Like hell they didn't!" Shego screamed from their bedroom.

The redhead trotted up to their bedroom and joined Shego on their bed. She crawled over to the raven-haired officer and pressed herself against the older woman. Shego looked down at her lover and sighed while wrapping her arms around Kim.

"Look, Shego, you know they didn't mean anything disrespectful by the question," Kim said.

"Why couldn't they just be happy for us? I mean, we're going to have a baby." Shego paused to her hand on Kim's abdomen. "So, why couldn't they just be happy? What the hell does it matter who donated what? This is our baby, yours and mine. So, why couldn't they just be happy?" she wondered out loud.

"I guess it's only natural to wonder about a baby's father…" Kim replied as an attempt to justify their parents' question and ease her spouse's wounded spirit.

"Well, our baby doesn't have a father. Our baby has two mothers and that's that. What's so hard to understand about that? We're married and we're going to have a baby. How hard is this fucking concept to follow?" Shego inquired.

They both felt like there was no "father" to their baby. It was their baby. They were both going to be raising the child as theirs like any married couple would do. They were both the baby's parents and that was the end of it for them. They had decided before they even knew that the baby was there that was how things were going to be when they finally had a child.

"Harder than we think, I guess. Don't let it get you so down. Yes, we're having a baby and that's all that should matter. Everything else is secondary information and you shouldn't let it bother you since we've got a baby to worry about now," the redhead pointed out while putting her hand on top of Shego's.

"Yeah," the green-skinned woman agreed in a low voice. They were going to have a baby and that was all that matter.

--------------

"I don't understand what she got so bent out of shape for," James said. He was speaking to his wife and Isabel, who had called them after the abrupt ending to their conference call with their daughters. "We just wanted to know who the father of the baby was. It's not like the baby just showed up in Kim's stomach," he commented.

"I think we missed the point of the call," Isabel replied.

"Right, instead of responding to the fact that they were having a baby together, we focused on what is biologically needed to produce a baby," Ann concurred.

"And gave off the idea that we weren't as happy as we really are," Isabel added.

"But, how could that happen from just wanting to know who the father is?" James asked. He did not understand the big deal. All babies had fathers and he wanted to know who had created their grandchild with Kim. It seemed logical enough to him.

"Because to them, there isn't a father. It's like asking them which one of them is Smiley's father," Isabel reasoned and Ann nodded in agreement, which was all right because James was standing next to her and could see the gesture.

"How isn't there a father? If there wasn't a father, Kimmie couldn't be carrying a baby," he pointed out.

"Stop thinking scientifically and think in terms of a family," Ann instructed her husband, knowing full well that it was almost impossible for him to not think scientifically. He was a man that could not make boil water without having to explain the reaction to whoever was around, which was mostly her now since the twins were away at school.

"What? A baby has to have a father," James insisted.

"You might be at this a while," Isabel remarked, speaking to Ann.

"Tell me about it," the redhead sighed. "James, hon, you really just to have to think about this one like this; Shego is the father," she said, hoping that would give him an idea of what was going on.

"How is Shego the father? She's a woman," he replied.

"Should I call back later?" Isabel joked.

"I'm going to make him make it through this, even if it kills him," Ann riposted. "James, Kim and Shego are a married couple. They are having a baby that Kim is carrying. Since they're married, it is their baby and as far as they're concerned, which means as far as we're concerned, there is no male parent."

James made a face. "How is that possible? Kim couldn't have impregnated herself," he pointed out.

"James," Ann said in a stern voice.

"I get what you're saying. Kim and Shego are the baby's parents, like they're Smiley's parents, but that still doesn't explain who the baby's father is," he explained his position on the matter. He also did not understand why it was offensive to Shego to ask such a thing.

"There is no father," the neurosurgeon said.

"Once again—"

"James, this is not a biology project. This is our daughter's baby that she is having with her spouse. The baby has two parents, Kim and Shego. Someone that they're probably not going to tell us about donated sperm more than likely to get Kim pregnant, but that's irrelevant to the discussion. The whole point of the matter is that we were supposed to be happy that they're having a baby," Ann stated.

"But, we are happy," he countered. He was overjoyed that they were going to have another grandchild. If the child turned out anything like Todd, he would be even happier. He might finally get someone to follow in his footsteps, even though there was still a possibility that the twins might do that; at least they were engineering majors.

"We didn't show them that," Isabel said, hopping back into the discussion.

"The first words out of our mouths shouldn't have had anything to do with who the father was," Ann said. She could not believe all three of them had made the same mistake.

"Hell, from what I can tell, we probably shouldn't bring that subject up again at all," Isabel commented.

"Agreed," Ann said.

"Now we have to hope that they do call us back," Isabel pointed out.

"Yeah," the doctors concurred with sighed. They were not sure if they were going to get a second call from the way that Shego had sounded.

--------------

Kim and Shego were going to try it one more time. It had taken a lot of coaxing from the slender hero to get Shego to agree to call their parents back, but the pale woman agreed in the end. It was the only way to get Kim to stop throwing a tantrum, rolling around on the kitchen floor as if she had lost her mind as far as Shego was concerned.

"Hi, everybody there?" Kim asked.

"Yeah," the doctors Possible answered.

"Yes," Isabel chimed in.

"Okay, well, I guess I already told you the news and everything, so there's nothing new to report," the olive-eyed scientist commented with a bit of an awkward laugh.

"Yes, well, first, we'd like to apologize for earlier," Ann informed the young couple.

"Yes, we didn't mean anything by it," James added.

"It was rather insensitive of us and it's not even important information," Isabel finished the apology.

"Yeah, it was insensitive," Shego snorted.

"How far along are you?" Ann inquired.

"When are you due?" Isabel asked at the same time, so their questions kind of got muddled together.

"What are you having?" James inquired.

"So far, we're having a bump. You're a little ahead of us, Dad," Kim replied with a little bit of a laugh.

"So you mean I'm going to have to wait for a long time before I get to launch any rockets off with this kid?" he asked, almost as if he was disappointed.

Kim laughed again. "Yeah, Dad, we're a long way from that happening."

From there on, they all had a nice, long pleasant conversation. It did eventually turn into just Kim and Shego getting long lists of "dos" and "don'ts" about having not just a baby, but when the kid grew up. It was exhausting for the future parents, but they figured in the long run, they were actually going to appreciate the information.

--------------

Next time: Todd finds out about things and he doesn't seem too thrilled about this whole "having a baby" thing.


	16. Reason Sixteen: Out in the cold

I don't own these characters or the original premise behind this saga.

Reason Sixteen: Out in the cold

_We didn't think this one out beyond our happiness, so maybe we were asking for this. Maybe…_

Christmas was upon everyone once again. It was a white Christmas, having snowed slightly the previous day. Yori was happy that she had not "popped" yet as Ron had taken to referring to her going into labor. Todd was with his preferred parents, about to open gifts with his Kimmie while Shego was posed to take pictures.

They were camped out in the living room, early in the morning because Todd and Kim did not seem to believe in sleeping in late when gifts were waiting for them, which meant that Shego could not sleep late either. There were Christmas' decorations up, of course. Kim had put those up a couple of weeks ago and Shego had put all of the gifts under the tree last night once her troublesome redheads slept. It was becoming a tradition in itself, which did not bother the ladies.

"All right you little scavengers, start tearing things open right now," Shego said once she got her camera together. She purposely took her time with it because she liked the anxious look on her monster's face and their gremlin's face while waiting for the word to open their presents.

Todd grinned as he quickly grabbed for a box. He held it up for Shego to take a picture of him and then Kim asked him who the present was from. His third Christmas with the couple involved getting gifts from them, their parents, and also their brothers. He was really a part of their family, he realized. It was a great feeling.

"It's from Grandpa," he answered enthusiastically. He referred to Kim's father as "grandpa" because he had more contact and felt more accepted by Kim's father to use the term of endearment. With Shego's father, well, he just tried to avoid the huge man more often than not on the couple of occasions that he did see the man. He was certain that Shego's father disliked him; he had a lot of experience in reading people that were not fond of him.

"Oh, great, let me go get the fire extinguisher ready," Shego commented quite seriously. She was pretty certain that anything from Grandpa and the tweebs was going to explode and/or start a fire.

"Open it, Smiley. Let's see if it does need She-she to get the fire extinguisher," Kim said and Todd grinned.

The boy tore into the box with vigor and revealed that his guardians were too jumpy. James had sent the child a toy rocket, which caused him to grin again. He turned to Kim and held up the box, shaking it as if begging her to go out with him right now to fire the thing off.

"Smiley, something like that needs to wait for the temperature to at least be in the teens," Kim remarked.

"Fine," he sighed. He guessed that it would make sense for them to wait until his snot did not freeze in his nose when he went outside.

Todd turned his attention to another present and tore it open. He did not bother to check and see who it was from. Luckily, it was from Kim. She got him a life-sized rattlesnake model that he could take apart down to its little organs. Shego took a picture and then gave her spouse a look as if asking "where the hell did you get that thing?" Kim only smiled.

"This is too cool!" Todd cheered while pulling the snake out of its box and snapping its head off. He then opened its mouth and got to see the fangs and everything. He even pulled a fang out. "This thing just gets better and better!"

"I knew he would love that thing," the hero commented with a chuckle.

"You find some of the strangest shit," the super-powered female said to her spouse because Kim certainly did bring home some weird things for their son and he almost always loved them.

"You just have to know where to look," Kim replied with a shrug.

"You open something, Princess. With luck, it's nothing that'll blow up," Shego remarked because it was possible that Kim's father sent gifts for the olive-eyed scientist as well as their son.

Kim grabbed the box nearest to her and ripped it open. It was a present from her spouse and it was something that she was in dire need of, new sneakers. Shego had actually recently purchased some sneakers for Kim to wear daily, but that was a backup pair because she went through sneakers rapidly.

The two redheads continued to go through presents. Kim occasionally handed things to Shego for her to open, which the pale woman did, but without the eager vigor of her wife and their son. Todd then stopped everything and widely grinned as he opened a box that held a two-foot model of a smilodon.

"Who's that from, Smiles?" Shego asked curiously because he was grinning like he had just gotten the world on a plate.

"It's from Grandma!" he practically hollered in a cheerful tone.

"Of course," Shego sighed. Her mother certainly was winning the boy over.

Todd referred to Isabel as "grandma" while Ann got the brand of "mee-ma." They were not sure where he got "mee-ma" from, but Ann accepted the name and smiled at him every time he said it, which he loved. He had quickly grown to love his grandmothers just as much as he loved his guardians. Isabel and Ann just reminded him so much of his She-she and his Kimmie.

They made it through all of the gifts, everyone getting something they wanted along with things that they needed. Todd thought that he was going to get "the special, surprise gift" now. His She-she and Kimmie had told him last night that when he was done with opening all of his presents under the tree that they had a big surprise gift for him and he had been wondering about it since then.

"So, do I get my last present now?" Todd asked anxiously.

"No, Smiles. First, we have to call Grandpa and Mee-ma to thank them for all the stuff they sent and we've got to call your Grandma too," Kim answered.

"Do we really have to call his Grandma?" Shego sighed. The last thing she wanted to do was hear from her mother on Christmas, a holiday Isabel did celebrate just as an excuse to call the family together in the past. Who knew what might come out of that woman's mouth? She was willing to bet that it would be something annoying.

"Yes, we have to call his Grandma. He needs to thank her for everything too," the hero answered.

Shego sighed again and silently hoped that her mother did not want to talk with her when Isabel was done with Todd. They first called up Grandpa and Mee-me for Todd to thank them, which he did with great enthusiasm. They had a short conversation before they let him go to finish enjoying Christmas. And then, his Grandma was called and they both greeted each other with great joy.

Shego practically balked when Todd handed her the phone. She was then surprised when Isabel just wished her a Merry Christmas and told the green-skinned woman to take care of her growing little family. Shego made a noise, but nothing else really. Her mother let her go after that because she thought that Shego probably just wanted to spend time with her wife and their son, which she was right about.

"So, do I get my last present now?" Todd asked again. He did not want his good parents to forget about the final present.

"You're so impatient," Shego said to her gremlin. She decided that he got the quality from Kim, even though she was really the impatient one. She just blamed Kim because of the way that the adventurer behaved when they were in the house, throwing tantrums to get her way and never wanting to wait for anything when Shego told her to.

"But, I really wanna see it," the child replied with a huge grin.

"I bet you do," Shego commented and then she grabbed him up, tickling him once he was secure in her grip.

"No, She-she!" he giggled while begging and trying to force her hand away. Kim smiled at the sight and made sure to get a picture of it.

"Yes, booger," the pale woman replied and she spun him around while tickling him.

"Help me, Kimmie!" Todd pled while reaching out for the other redhead in the room.

"No way! She'll just tickle me too!" Kim pointed out. She and Todd believed in "every man for himself" when it came to tickling. They did not help each other anymore when one was in the talons of the merciless Shego because they were not interested in sharing such a fate.

"Help me!" he pled.

"Nope." Kim shook her head firmly and grabbed a throw pillow to hold while she just watched the havoc. Shego did not tickle the boy for long and when she was done, she tossed him on the sofa, next to his Kimmie. He continued to giggle while Shego flopped down onto the sofa next to him.

"So, now do I get to see my present?" he asked while trying to catch his breath.

"Well, you won't get to see your present for a long time," Shego commented.

"Why? Is it because I did something bad? I didn't mean it," the child said in a panic.

"No, no, no, Smiles," Kim assured him while Shego just laughed. Kim put her arms around the boy and Shego mimicked that, so they all engaged in a little family hug.

"Then how come I can't see it?" Todd asked curiously.

"Well, booger, you can't see it because it's not here yet," Shego answered.

"Not here yet? Do we hafta pick it up from somewhere?" he inquired with a puzzled expression.

"No, we just have to wait for it," Kim answered.

"Well, can you tell me what it is then? Or is it a surprise?" he asked.

"No, we're going to tell you, but it's still going to be a surprise when it happens," Shego replied.

"Okay, so what is it?" the pale child asked eagerly.

"Next year, you're going to be a big brother," Kim informed him with a smile on her face.

"A big brother?" he echoed, looking more perplexed than before. How was he going to be a big brother? Why would he even want to be a big brother?

"Yeah, a big brother. We're going to have a baby and you're going to be a big brother," Shego added in.

"You're going to have a baby?" he repeated it and it sounded foreign to his ears. He just did not understand. Why were they going to have a baby? They had him. They should not need any more kids then. Was he not good enough?

"Yeah, it's growing inside of Kimmie's tummy," Shego told him.

Todd glanced down at Kim's stomach and noticed it was flat. Well, it was not going to be very big, he thought. But, then again, he knew from seeing Yori progress through her pregnancy that a mother tended to get bigger as time went by. He did not understand why they were going to have a baby, though.

From Todd's limited social experience, only people without children had babies. But, his She-she and Kimmie had him, so he did not see why they would have a baby. It was supposed to just be him and them. They were a family…right?

"Isn't it great, Smiley?" Kim asked with a huge grin and she hugged the boy.

"Uh-huh," he said in a dead tone.

"Booger, what's wrong?" Shego inquired, noticing that he looked like he was miles away from them and witnessing a horrible war scene or something like that.

"Nothing…" he answered and he slid off of the sofa.

Kim and Shego looked at each other, as if asking what was wrong with their son. Neither had an answer for the other and then they turned to look at Todd. He was going through all of the gift-wrapping that was littering the living room floor and sniffling as he did so. It seemed like he was looking for something.

"What's the matter, Smiley? Are you looking Tai?" Kim asked.

Todd nodded slowly. Kim got up off of the sofa to go help him look for Tai, which was his saber-tooth plush toy that he still carried whenever and wherever possible. He had named the stuffed animal Tai after Kim told him a story that she once got bitten by a taipan snake and he was totally fascinated with the tale and with the snake involved. Taipans were by far his favorite venomous snake and thus, he named his "best friend" after the reptile.

"I'll go make you two some hot chocolate and I guess we can stare mindlessly at Christmas cartoons for the rest of the day," Shego remarked.

"Sounds like a good idea," Kim agreed while moving paper out of the way to assist in locating the missing saber-tooth.

The raven-haired woman got up from the couch and went to the kitchen. Kim quickly found the lost toy and returned it to its owner. While doing that, she supposed that she might as well clean up the mess that they made, in case something else wanted was buried under a grave of torn paper and boxes. She thought that Todd had gone to sit on the sofa, but when she turned around after a few minutes of cleaning, she saw that he was gone.

She thought that was a little odd, but there was a chance that he went to the bathroom or went in the kitchen to bug his She-she. After a few more minutes, she was not so sure, though. There was no yelling or giggling coming from the kitchen, meaning that Todd was not in there misbehaving with his She-she. If he was in the bathroom, he would have come back into the living room by now.

Kim decided to investigate. She poked her head in the kitchen and saw that Shego was the only person in there. She then went and checked the bathrooms to find them both unoccupied. She looked down in the basement because sometimes Todd would go down there to play on their gym equipment or do tumbles on their mats. He was not down there either, though. She went and checked his room, their room, the office, and the unused room only to find that they were all empty too.

"Shego," Kim called as she descended the stairs.

"Yeah?" the green-skinned female replied.

"Have you seen Smiley?" Kim inquired.

"No, why?"

"I don't think he's in the house anymore," Kim reported as she made it to the kitchen.

"What the hell do you mean he's not in the house anymore? Where else would he be?" Shego asked in a confused tone.

"I don't know, but I looked everywhere for him and I haven't seen him."

"That's crazy. Where would he go?" Shego wondered out loud.

The pale woman decided to do her own sweep of the house and called out for the child too. There was no answer. The silence made Shego feel two emotions at once, which she was used to thanks to being with Kim so long; she was worried and angry.

"Okay, I'll go look for him outside," Shego announced as she grabbed her cell phone and went to the door to put her shoes on. She looked down by the door to see that Todd's sneakers were missing from shoe rack that was by the door. Shit, she cursed mentally.

"And what do I do?" Kim asked in a slight panic all her own. She should have been watching him more closely, she mentally berated herself. It was just that he usually would sit on the sofa and be quiet as long as he had Tai with him or he would bounce all around her where she could see him. He had never run off before.

"You wait here in case he comes back," Shego pointed out the obvious.

"Right." Kim nodded.

The super-powered female exited the house without a coat on; actually, she was still in her pajamas of black sweatpants and a green tank-top. She looked up and down the street, but did not see any sign of their son. She asked herself where Todd would go in the city and the first place that she thought about was her family's house.

Todd knew the place as "Grandma's house," so he probably would go there, she thought. He had been there a few times; Isabel liked to volunteer to baby-sit for a few hours to get to know Todd better and she sometimes did it at the Gooding family home because Kim and Shego always thought that Todd needed to get out of the house as much as possible. He did like spending time with Isabel too, so it was always nice when she offered to take him for a little while.

Shego decided to call her mother and find out if the woman was at the house, in case that was where Todd was headed. Isabel would then know to look out for him and not go anywhere. She wondered what the hell that boy was thinking just walking out of the house like that.

"Hey, Mommy," Shego said into the phone.

"Hey, firefly. Shocking to hear from you twice in one day," Isabel said in sort of a teasing tone.

"Mommy, where are you right now?" the green-skinned woman inquired.

"Where am I? Why do you want to know?" Isabel countered, getting a kick out of taunting her child as usual. It actually irked her when Shego asked her such things, though.

"Well, Smiley ran off and I think the little gremlin might be heading to the house since he thinks you live there. Are you there by any chance?" the green-skinned officer asked. For once, she hoped that her mother was somewhere close by.

"He ran off? What did you do to my happy little grandson to make him run off on Christmas?" Isabel demanded to know.

"I didn't do anything to him!" Shego hollered indignantly on her phone. She would never hurt her son or cause him to run away, not on purpose anyway.

"Then why'd he run off?"

"Hell if I know! One second he's grinning like usual on the phone with you, we told him he was going to be a big brother soon, and then he was looking for his sidekick while Kimmie helped. I went into the kitchen to make hot chocolate and the next thing I know, he's gone!" Shego reported in a slight panic now.

It was such a big city and their little gremlin was only seven. Sure, they had taught him to defend himself a little bit, but not enough to make it on the streets alone for long. He was not tall or carrying a weapon, so he could run into trouble. Where was he? Why would he run out of the house?

"Okay, firefly, calm down. You'll find him," Isabel assured her daughter.

"You're not at the house, are you?" Shego inquired in a disappointed tone.

"No, sorry. I'm not even in the country," the older woman admitted. Never before did she wish so badly that she was in Go City. She had faith that her daughter would find her grandson, but it would have made her feel a lot better if she was able to assist in that.

"Damn it," the green-skinned woman growled.

"Calm down. You're going to find the little fire warrior," Isabel promised her daughter. She had dubbed Todd "the fire warrior" because of his crimson red hair and she thought that it would make him feel more accepted to have a nickname from her just like his She-she did. He did not take offense to the nickname like his She-she did.

"I know I am," Shego huffed. Of course she was going to find him! She did not need her mother stating the obvious right now. She just needed to find her damn son!

"All right. Do you want me to stay on the line?"

"No. I'll call you when I find him," the daughter replied. She did not even let her mother answer; she just ended the call.

It was clear that Shego was worried just because she had offered to call her mother back with information. Usually, it would never even cross her mind to say such a thing. She just knew that her mother was going to be worried about Todd now and she would prefer to save Isabel that kind of heartache because it was killing her on the inside right now. She really needed to find her fucking son.

--------------

Todd sniffled as he ran down the street, making sure to keep a tight grip on Tai. His little legs were cold because he had run out in his pajamas. He had had the mind to grab his coat, but he did not think to put on proper clothing. He just wanted to get away. He figured that it would be best to leave of his own accord before his She-she and Kimmie made him leave.

He thought that they did not want him anymore and that was why they were having a baby. He guessed that it made sense. No one ever wanted him. Ever since he was born, people were always passing him over or passing him off on someone. No one ever wanted him and just when he thought that he had a family in Kimmie and She-she, they pushed him aside to have a baby. It was not fair, he lamented in his mind.

Maybe they wanted someone that was related to them by blood, he thought. He was not really theirs, after all. He was just some snotty kid that followed Kimmie home from a fast food restaurant after his crappy grandmother lost him. He was not theirs and they did not need to keep him around now that they were having a child of their own, he thought. He sniffled as the ideas raced through his mind. Nobody wanted him.

He always thought that he was such a good son. He always did what his biological parents told him, but they never wanted him. He had been so quiet and still and "well-behaved" when he was with them, but they never cared. They just ignored him. He thought that would change with Kimmie and She-she, but it would seem that they did not want him anymore either.

Well, they did offer him the chance to be a big brother, but he did not even want to be a big brother. He just wanted it to be him, Kimmie, and She-she all of the time. They were a family and he got attention. They focused on him when he was around. They were going to focus on their new baby now, though. He was almost certain that they were going to totally ignore him and that would be if he was lucky. The worst thing would be them throwing him out and sending him back to his birth parents forever. It was not fair!

Tears in his eyes began to roll down his cheeks at a steady pace. He wiped away the tears, knowing that his She-she would admonish him if she ever saw him cry. It was just that he wanted to stay with them always and forever, but it would seem that was not going to work. It was not going to be the same.

He continued running, planning to go to his Grandma's house. As far as he knew his Grandma would make everything all right. Isabel might even make his She-she keep him and pay attention to him like always. If not that, maybe his Grandma would keep him.

He did like Isabel and she did not have little children anymore. Maybe she would want him and he could stay with her. He would even be able to see his She-she and Kimmie occasionally. Sure, they would probably ignore him, but he would get to see them and that would make him happy. But, then again, he considered that his Grandma might just focus on the new baby like She-she and Kimmie were bound to do. And now that he thought about that, he realized that his Grandpa and Mee-ma were probably going to be the same way.

He cried some more as the notion of being all alone crossed his mind. He loved his family so much and now he was not going to be in it anymore. Why did things have to be like that? Why did everyone dislike him? Why was he even born, he demanded to know while looking angrily at the sky.

He continued on and kept a tight hold on Tai. He tried to remember how to make it to his Grandma's house. Everything seemed different on foot compared to when he was in a car. He was luckily a keen observer though and remembered landmarks. Still, he did not take into account how far he would have to travel and just how cold he was getting. He hugged Tai to him, hoping that the soft toy would help warm him up.

"Smiles!" He heard his name called from behind him and turned around. His jade eyes locked onto his She-she's form; she was up the street.

"She-she?" he mumbled in disbelief.

"Oh, thank god," Shego muttered as she charged down the street to get to her little gremlin. She leaned down and grabbed him into a tight hug. He made a noise while she kissed his cheek and just held him.

"She-she," he grunted. She was hurting him by embracing him so tightly, but she continued on.

"Oh, god, booger, do you know how worried we were about you? Why'd you just leave the house like that? If you want to see your grandma, you should just tell us," Shego informed him, thinking that was why he left the house.

Todd did not respond. His lip trembled and he wrapped his arms around Shego's neck, just holding onto her tightly. She was his She-she, he thought as he began to weep. He should not have to share her with anyone other than his Kimmie. It was not fair that they were going to have a baby now. He wanted them to always be his.

"Booger, why are you crying?" Shego asked as she picked him up and held him. She could feel that he was cold, so she held him closely to warm him up.

"I don't wanna hafta leave you and Kimmie! I wanna be in your family! I want you to stay my parents!" he bawled. It was so cold that his tears were freezing to his face.

"Booger, what are you talking about?" she inquired as she started back toward their home. She broke into a light jog to get back there soon, so he could get warm. "You don't have to leave us and you're always going to be in our family. You are our family. You're our son, Smiley. You are our son," she said firmly.

He was their little boy. They loved him like anyone would love a blood son. She did not see why he would think anything differently.

"You're going to have a baby now. You're going to have your own baby and you're not going to want me anymore," he explained, still weeping.

"Smiles, you're talking real crazy right now, you know that? Just because we're going to have a baby doesn't mean we don't want you. First of all, family, and I mean real family like us, just doesn't throw family away like that and we would never throw our son away. You're our son and we're keeping you, whether you want us to or not," she replied in a bit of a playful tone to hopefully set him at ease.

"But, you're having a baby…" he pointed out with a sniffle.

"So what? You're our son and you're going to be a big brother."

"But, I don't wanna be a big brother! I just wanna be with you and Kimmie. I don't wanna share you!" he screamed while moving to look his She-she in the eye. He wanted her to see his anguish and pain and how much he wanted them to just stay a little family. She mostly saw that he was turning blue from being outside in single digit weather for so long, but she did see his agony in his jade eyes.

"Smiles, I know how you feel," she said and that actually shocked him.

"Huh?"

"I know how you feel, but sometimes parents have other kids, but that doesn't mean they forget about the older kids."

"But, I want you to only pay attention to me," he stated honestly.

"I understand that, booger, but you have to have more faith in us than that. Besides, do you think that your grandpa and mee-ma stopped paying attention to Kimmie when they had your uncles?"

Todd thought about it. "Nah-uh."

"Okay, and do you think that your grandma stopped paying attention to me when your uncle Michael was born?"

He thought about it again. "Nah-uh."

"So, do you really think that me and Kimmie would stop paying attention to you because of your baby brother or sister?"

One more time did he take a few seconds to think about his answer and he answered the same. "Nah-uh."

"Damn right. We're never going to let you go, kid. You're our son and we're going to stand by you until the very end and you have to do the same with your brother or sister. The baby is going to need you," Shego said.

"Need me?" he echoed like he did not understand.

"Yes, need you. A baby, a person, needs as much love as they can get. You know that and I know that, so you need to love your brother or sister, okay? You have to take care of the baby because you're the big brother. You have to make sure that the youngster is always okay, like we make sure you're always okay. Are you good with that?" she asked, looking him in the eye.

Todd thought about. Was he okay with it? Did he want to be responsible for his little brother or sister? He was not sure. He still did not want to be a big brother. He wanted to keep his Kimmie and She-she to himself.

"Booger, we're trusting you with the baby. This is something important to us and we want it to be important to you too. We want you to like the baby just as much as we do," Shego said.

"Are you both going to still like me?" he asked.

"Of course we will. You're our son, Smiles. Remember that, you are our son," she said with conviction.

Todd nodded and rested his head on her shoulder. His She-she and Kimmie were his parents, he reminded himself. They were different from other people. They paid attention to him, even though they did not have to. They made him feel safe and loved. They wanted him to do the same for their baby. He thought about that, very hard.

It would be beyond fantastic to make someone younger than he was feel the way that his guardians made him feel, he thought. It was an honor now that he thought about it because he realized how Kim and Shego made him feel. He would love to give someone else that feeling. He would make his parents proud of him and take good care of their baby, his little sibling.

Shego carried Todd home, making sure he remained close to her to stay warm. When they entered the house, Kim rushed to the door to see if her spouse had found their son. When she saw them, she charged them and embraced them both tightly.

"I'm so glad you're all right," Kim said to Todd while placing a number of kisses on his freezing cheeks and frosty red nose. "Where'd you go? Why'd you just leave like that? What did you think you were doing?" she inquired in a frantic tone.

"He just needed to clear his head, Princess," Shego answered.

"Clear his head?" Kim echoed, but she figured that was code for Shego had handled everything, so she switched subjects. "You're cold, boogie. I'll get you some blankets."

Todd nodded and Shego took him to the living room. She placed him on the couch and Kim quickly came in with two blankets to wrap him in. He quietly thanked his Kimmie for the blankets while holding them to himself tightly. Kim sat down next him and held him to help warm him up while Shego went back to making hot chocolate, to hopefully get the day back to normal and to help in warming their son up.

Shego also called her mother back to tell her that everything turned out okay and she found Todd safe and secure. Isabel was very glad to hear the news, even though Shego did not explain the whole incident to her. The mother and daughter did not say on the phone for long. Once she was done with Isabel, Shego carried the warm beverages out to her redheaded imps. They all curled up on the sofa after that and watched whatever cartoons Todd wanted to.

They all seemed content, Todd included. He noticed throughout the day that Shego touched Kim's abdomen, which he knew was where his sibling was. He reached out tentatively once to touch Kim's stomach too, thinking maybe he would be able to feel the baby and maybe that would help him feel better about things. He seemed scared at first, but Shego noticed what he was doing. She took his little hand and put it to Kim's stomach and Kim pressed the tiny pale hand to her belly. He smiled a little bit, even though it did not feel like there was a baby in there.

"I'll be a good big brother," he silently promised. If Kimmie and She-she could take care of him, then he would take care of their baby because they trusted him to do that.

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Next time: babies get born.


	17. Reason Seventeen: Bundles of joy

I don't own these characters and I don't own the original premise behind this saga.

The name "Bokuden" is pronounced Bo-ku-den and the name "Raziya" is pronounced Rah-zee-yah.

Reason Seventeen: Bundles of joy

_It might be a miracle once it's done, but getting to the finish line is troublesome. _

Yori had gotten to enjoy Christmas and the day after before her actually overdue baby was born. She had a baby boy, who came out looking like a Japanese version of Ron with blonde hair and chocolate eyes, but no freckles. She offered Ron the chance to name their son, but he declined. He thought that since Yori had gone through the trouble of carrying their son for more than nine months that she should have the honor of naming the child. She smiled, happy to oblige.

She named the baby Bokuden, after a famous swordsman who lived to an old age and eventually taught the philosophy that a fight should be won without coming to blows. Ron was pleased with that; his son was Bokuden Stoppable; no middle name was necessary in their opinions. He was not sure how his parents were going to react to it, but he was very pleased with the name. He was also pleased that the baby looked like him; Monique remarked that she hoped the child did not act like his father, which Ron took no offense too because he was too happy to be a daddy now to notice any cracks against him.

Shego thought that Bokuden was an old man's name and she said as much when she went with Kim to see the newborn. Yori simply countered by asking what she planned to name her baby when it was born. Shego did not have a comeback for that one because she and Kim had not discussed baby names, but now that Yori put it out there, they were going to think about it.

----(New day)

"What do you want to name the baby if we have a boy?" Kim asked her spouse curiously. They were just lounging in bed at night, relaxing.

"I don't know. I don't want the name to be something common, though," Shego replied while stretching out in the bed.

"Common? Like what?"

"Like your family names and my family names," the pale woman pointed out. "I want our kid to have an interesting name," she said while reaching over to rub her wife's stomach. They had a "legitimate" bump now; Kim's abdomen was no longer totally flat.

"Interesting like what?" the redhead inquired while holding in a yawn. Rubbing her stomach was now as close to relaxing her as caressing her head.

"I haven't thought that far yet. What do you want to name the baby if we have a boy?"

"What do you think of Andrew?" Kim asked. Shego made a face, which the redhead did not accept. "What? What's wrong with Andrew?" she inquired.

"Well, aside for the fact that if you shorten it, you get Drakken's middle name," Shego started out, but she really did not need to continue after saying that much.

"Okay, say no more. New name. What about Fredrick?" the younger woman offered up.

"Fredrick? Where are you getting these names? You want our son to have to kick ass in school everyday because kids are making fun of his name?" Shego countered with a bit of a laugh.

"Well, I don't hear you coming up with great names," the scientist riposted.

"Well, it's better than coming up with crappy ones like you," the green-skinned female commented with a teasing smile.

Kim made a face now, which earned her a kiss because Shego wanted her to get rid of that expression. The redhead returned the kiss, even though she knew that it was a ploy to get her to cease what she was doing. They would have continued kissing, but the bedroom door opened and there stood their son in the doorway.

"Smiley, what's wrong?" Shego inquired as they turned their attention to the boy.

"I had the scariest nightmare of all time," Todd reported as if he was more amazed than frightened.

"Okay, come on in and tell us all about," Kim invited him because she knew that was what he wanted to do. She moved a little bit away from her spouse because she knew that their son was going to want to be in the middle of them.

Todd obeyed and crawled into bed with them, lying in between the couple as he covered himself with the blanket on the bed. Once he was settled in, he started telling them about the fantastic nightmare that he had. He was going to sleep in their bed that night, they knew, but not out of fear. He had stopped being afraid of his nightmares recently, knowing that they were all in his mind and that his guardians would never let anything truly horrific happen to him. But, his brain sometimes amazed him and he just had to tell them about it. So, he went into talking about the dream and reported it all to them. When he was done, he was planning to sleep in the bed with them just because he liked being near them.

"We've got to stop letting you have cake before you go to bed or something," Shego remarked because Todd did have some bizarre nightmares when he stayed over with them. He had actual nightmares when he was at home and could not go to his She-she and Kimmie and tell them about the dreams.

"It's not the cake," Todd insisted. He liked having cake before going to bed, much like Kim, who would be the person that he got the habit from.

"It's got to be something," the pale woman commented.

"It's not that. So, what're you two doing?" the boy asked, wanting to stay up with them, which was normal for him.

"Thinking of names for the baby. Do you have any ideas?" Kim inquired. She bet that Todd would love to be included in the activity and she was right.

"Hmm…" Todd thought on it. "Tyrannosaur," he offered with a grin.

"Um…no," Shego said, although she had to admit that that would raise some eyebrows as a first name. "A normal name, booger. We'll think about a nickname once the kid shows up," she informed him.

"Oh." Todd put his hand to his chin. "What about Chris?" he suggested.

"Why Chris?" Kim asked, even though she could tell from the look on her love's face that they were not going to be naming their baby that if it was a boy.

"I know a boy name Chris and he can touch his nose with his tongue, which is really cool," the child explained.

"Oh, yeah, name the baby after a boy with a freakishly long tongue. Perfect," Shego said sarcastically.

"Well, what about girl names?" Kim asked, hoping that would go better than the current conversation was.

"Girl? That's a girl in there?" Todd inquired while pointing at his Kimmie's "bump."

"We don't know yet, booger. And so what if it is a girl?" the raven-haired woman asked because the boy sounded as if he did not want the baby to be a girl.

"Well, I want a brother," he declared.

"Why?" the ladies asked at the same time, both sounding puzzled by that.

"So I can blow stuff up with him like Uncle Jim and Uncle Tim," he answered as if it was obvious.

Kim and Shego just looked at each other. They knew that their brothers did not set the best example for their son, but they did not know it went to where Todd was looking to have a little brother just to cause trouble. They sighed and shook their heads; the gremlin was such a handful, even without meaning to be.

"Look, booger, you might have a little sister, so you have to be prepared for that. So, what would think as a name for a girl?" Shego asked the child.

"Hmm…" Todd put his hand back his chin again. "Oh, what about Cassie? Just like She-she, then," he pointed out.

"Oh, yeah, that's just what this house needs, another Cassie," Kim teased her spouse with a smile gracing her lips while Shego just frowned.

"Ha, ha, ha. We're not naming the baby anything close to my evil name," the emerald-eyed officer declared.

"Then what about Kimmie?" Todd offered up.

"Sorry, Smiley, but that's not a winner either. We need an original name, one that none of us have," Kim explained to the child.

"Oh. Well, I dunno then!" he proclaimed with a giant smile, happy to not know it would seem.

"That makes three of us," the hero remarked with a smile of her own.

"Could you two not be so proud about it?" Shego huffed.

"Could you not be so cranky about it?" Kim countered, just to be a pest.

"Come on, back to thinking of names," the older woman said to get them back on track and get them to stop being goofy.

"How about we sleep on it and try again later? I mean, we've got plenty of time," Kim pointed out.

"Plenty of time? When's my brother or sister going to come out?" Todd asked curiously.

"Sometime in the summer probably," Shego answered. They had gone to the doctor and gotten a due date, but she was starting not to trust doctors' predictions when it came to babies. After all, the doctor had told Betty that she was going to be having a boy, but Mayah certainly was a little girl. And then there was Yori, who had carried Bokuden passed two due dates. Babies seemed to just do whatever the hell they felt like it in her opinion.

"That is like forever from now," the boy commented with a groan. He wanted to meet that kid already.

His guardians laughed; next week seemed like forever to their son. The family decided to settle in for some sleep since they could not come up with any good names, but that would not be the end of name suggestions. Name suggestions quickly started coming from the expecting grandparents.

Shego thought it was creepy when Isabel started calling with name ideas. It was creepy because she was starting to find out some of the names that had been taken into consideration when she was in her mother's womb. She was starting to believe that she had made out well with "Cassandra" after her mother started saying some of the other names she liked.

----(New day)

"Princess, you have no fucking clue how close I was to being named Penelope," Shego reported with horror in her eyes and voice as she got off the phone with her mother, rejecting another round of baby names.

"Isabel liked that name, huh?" Kim asked, her feet resting in Shego's lap instead of her head for once. They were sitting on the sofa as usual, just relaxing. Their "bump" was just a little larger than before.

"Too much in my opinion," the pale woman remarked. And to think, she used to wonder what could have been worse than being dubbed "Cassandra Isabella," but now that she knew she could have just as easily been "Penelope Isabella," she figured that she might have to start appreciating "Cassandra" just a little bit more.

"What's wrong with it? You hate like every name on the planet," Kim pointed out with a smile.

"No, just all the dumb ones," Shego replied in a "doy" voice.

Kim rolled her eyes. They had gone through hundreds of names, with some help from family and friends, and none of them were good enough for Shego. Kim was starting to think that they might have to make up a name for the baby. Shego was starting to think that it might be best to see what their child looked like before picking out names.

"So, what are we going to do? Wait for my mother to call back with a list of names for you to make faces at?" Kim inquired. It never failed that after Isabel called with names, Ann would call right after with names of her own. Or Ann would call first and then Isabel would call.

"Why won't they just leave us be?" Shego wondered out loud with a tired sigh.

"Because they're our parents," the redhead pointed out with a smile.

Shego just shook her head, but did not get the chance to respond because the phone rang. Knowing who was calling, Shego passed the phone to spouse. Kim knew who it was too and greeted her mother as soon as she had the phone in her hand.

While Kim spoke with her mother, Shego wondered if she and Kim were going to be anything like their parents when their kids grew up. Were they always going to be offering Todd advice that he probably did not want? She hoped that they were not going to be as annoying as she thought their parents were, at the moment anyway. She might not be open to the name suggestions, but she did listen intently whenever their mothers talked out how to handle and take care of their baby when the child arrived.

Shego busied herself by tickling Kim's feet since they were in her lap. The redhead was trying her best not to giggle while she was on the phone, but that was a little hard to do. She eventually had to explain to her mother that she was not going insane, but her wife was tickling her.

"Hey, my mom says stop it," Kim informed Shego.

"What's she going to do if I don't?" Shego countered and she continued on, causing Kim to laugh louder.

"She says she going to call your mother!" Kim answered while trying to get away, but remain on the sofa. Needless to say, it was not working.

"Such an evil woman," the pale woman commented while deciding to grant her spouse some mercy for the moment.

"She also wants to know what you think of the name Lucia for a girl," the scientist reported.

Shego rolled her eyes and just waved the name off. Kim sighed and answered back that they would think on it. She then listened as her mother went through more names, some male, some female, and some unisex. She offered those back to Shego, who made faces to all of them, which was expected. Kim sighed when the conversation was over.

"You don't like any names," the redhead pointed out.

"None that've come up. We've got a lot of time to think on names, so don't worry about it," Shego replied.

Kim sighed again, but she did not argue. They still had plenty of time to think on a name, but she was not too sure if they were going to make the deadline, namely before their baby entered the world. She tried not to think on it, though. There were other things to think about thanks to the child calmly growing inside of her.

There were her missions of course. At first, they considered something drastic, which was that she would not do any missions while she was pregnant, but because Kim was as antsy and energetic as she was, they quickly found out that was going to be the very definition of impossible. So, they adjusted that and figured that Kim would do the less dangerous missions in the early months of the pregnancy. At the five month mark though, her missions were dead in the water until their baby was born, Shego told her as much.

Kim had not argued with that. She doubted that she would be able to do much as far as her missions with when she was five months pregnant anyway. She would not be used to moving around with the extra weight and she would be too nervous to do much anyway; hell, she was nervous to do things now. After all, she was carrying their baby.

She was also super-careful at work now. She did not feed any of the snakes anymore. She actually tried her best to not even handle the snakes; she asked people to handle the serpents for her. She was not frightened of being bitten, but she was not about to see what effects venom and antivenin could have on their unborn child. Her spouse was not interested in seeing that one either.

Shego was also more careful at work now, but not to the same extend as Kim, although she had been trying to be more cautious ever since she had gotten shot. She followed more of the rules and regulations than she ever had in the past and she typically now thought of plans to go after criminals instead of using her old "hit them until they stop" strategy that she used to go with more often than not.

The pair figured that they were ready for when their baby arrived. They had changed their lifestyles, they were financially secure, they were open to advice for the most part, and they were getting the baby's room together. They had been saving the last room in the house for just an occasion. Now, if only they had a name for the child.

----(New day)

Monique was very in pain, but rather happy about it. She had gone into labor and she was happy to be having her baby, not just because it was a joyous occasion, but she was tired of carrying around the extra weight. Kim could understand that, being twenty-eight pounds heavier than she was accustomed to herself at the moment.

Felix was glad that Monique was having the baby too, even though she was cursing him and his name for having done "this" to her. She had been rather cranky through out her whole pregnancy too and he was not used to it. The worst of matters, as far as he was concerned, was that she never wanted to have sex, not until she was freaking huge anyway. By that time, he was too disturbed to even think about having sex with her considering just looking at her reminded him that their child was in there. He just could not do it, knowing the baby was in there being…well, a baby. She never took kindly to him not wanting to sleep with her, no matter how illogical it seemed to him, and it generally lead to a lot more yelling from her at him.

Everyone was on pins and needles waiting to find out what Monique had. Shego was especially anxious. Yes, she was there waiting with Kim and her friends, just like she was there when Yori had Bokuden. Shego wanted to see if Felix's features were going to come out with his and Monique's baby. Was she going to be looking at a clone of Felix in about three months? She sincerely hoped not, even though she did not think that the appearance of the child would affect her much.

Monique was in labor for a whole twelve hours. Yori ended up leaving and coming back once she was informed that the baby was born because Bokuden had been being fussy. Upon arrival, she got to see that Monique had given birth to a caramel-skinned baby girl. Crowning the child's head was a patch of brown hair and she had a pair of sky blue eyes. So far, it looked like Felix had some strong genes.

"So, what are you guys going to name her?" Ron asked curiously while looking down at the baby. She was a cute little thing, he thought.

"It's still a toss up. Felix wants Raziya and I still like Michelle," Monique answered.

"I thought you guys agreed one would be her first name and the other would be her middle name," Kim said.

"We did agree, but we never agreed which was going to be which," Felix pointed out.

"Oh," the redhead muttered. "Don't you think you two need to figure out which one is going to be which now?" she inquired.

"Well, I like Raziya too, so how about we make that her first name?" Monique asked her husband.

Felix nodded in agreement. He was going to give in to her desire no matter what anyway. He looked down at their baby, Raziya Michelle Renton. He smiled, already deeply and dearly loving his daughter.

Shego studied the child, wondering if that was what her baby was going to look like. Would their baby have such light blue eyes? No one in her family had that shade of blue for their eyes. Would their baby have that shade of brown hair? No one in her family had that color hair and she had not met anyone in Kim's family with that particular shade either. The thoughts were a little unnerving and she hoped that she was not going to react poorly when their baby came.

--------------

Kim being pregnant was bothersome, but Kim being pregnant and stuck at home for the most part was worse. The more weight she put on, the lazier she got and the more she whined about things. Shego tried her best to put up with it, knowing that Kim was not herself, but she had limits.

"Damn it, Princess, shut up!" Shego screamed in pure frustration. Her wife was in the living room practically crying about a meal that she was not going to have.

Kim wanted spaghetti; it seemed to be all she wanted through out her pregnancy. No matter what meal it was, all Kim wanted was spaghetti and, of course, her lover was not looking to have that, especially when the redhead wanted spaghetti for breakfast. Kim was not looking to take "no" for an answer.

"Spaghetti!" Kim hollered back in a whiny tone.

"No! So, shut up!" the pale woman replied heatedly. God, she was sick of hearing that fucking word!

"Evil woman! Evil, evil woman!" Kim shrieked and then she pulled her trump card that got her everything that she wanted now. She began crying.

Sometimes, Kim actually did not cry on purpose. She would just get overwhelmed by any little, almost trivial thing and start bawling, which neither of them were used to and neither of them liked when that happened. But, other times, she did it to get her way and that worked. It worked because Shego never knew if she was being serious or not and the chance of her being serious made the green-skinned female act.

"No, no, no, don't do this crying bullshit, Pumpkin," Shego said as she entered the living room to find her little spouse curled up on the floor, shedding what she hoped were crocodile tears.

Kim did not let up and Shego snorted in anger. She sat down next to the redhead and took her into her arms. She held Kim in loving arms and stroked her seemingly forever growing belly. Kim leaned into her and found herself in an awkward spot that was becoming common. She was not sure anymore if she was pretending to cry or if she was really crying.

"Come on, Princess, don't cry," Shego pled in a gentle tone.

"I'm sorry I made you mad at me," Kim apologized. Well, that cleared up matters for both of them. She was genuinely weeping now because she thought that she had upset her mate.

"I'm not mad at you," Shego promised in a hushed tone.

"But, you told me to shut up," the redhead pointed out.

"I'm the one that's sorry. I shouldn't have told you to shut up like that. Look, I can't make you more spaghetti, okay? You have to eat better than that and you know that, so stop asking me about it," Shego stated.

Kim nodded, but she did not stop crying. Shego just held her and refused to give into the tears, knowing that they were going to keep going not because Kim was hurt emotionally anymore, but because she wanted spaghetti. The raven-haired woman was not going to make the pasta and that they both knew that because they had gone through the scene so many times already. Shego was going to make sure that Kim maintained an excellent diet while she was carrying their baby, whether Kim liked it or not.

Other than food, Shego was a little concerned about the way Kim just lounged around the house as she gained more and more weight. She tried to make her redheaded spouse get out and do things, but Kim would just whine and refuse to move. It was rather irksome to see her wife being so lazy when she used to be so active.

Kim bothered Shego with all kinds of irksome things, like changing the channel on the television if the remote was just out of her reach. She sometimes screamed as if something was seriously wrong just because she wanted Shego to pick her up off of the sofa. As far as Shego could tell, her little spouse was not as happy to be pregnant as they thought she might be now that she was deep into the condition. Neither of them could wait for their baby to arrive, although Shego hoped that their baby did not look like Raziya did.

Through out the pregnancy, Shego did not talk much about how annoying Kim was, not even with Betty. She supposed that deep down, she understood why Kim was the way that she was and she was prepared to be there for the scientist no matter how irksome she became. It was not going to last forever anyway, she always reminded herself. That was how she often made it through the day once she came home to Kim. It was not going to last forever and the end would justify everything anyway.

Work was a minimum distraction for Shego. Kim never called her when she was at work in order to whine or anything like that, which most would have thought made Shego relax. Wrong. Very, very wrong.

Shego was just a bundle of nerves at work, constantly wondering why the hell her wife was not calling her. Due to Kim's completely lazy and utterly dependent state when she was at the home, she thought that Kim should be calling her every ten minutes to bug her about something, but that was not the case. Kim did not call her during her work hours and it worried her. She always thought that something might have happened to Kim, which just meant that she always called the house. About once every hour, she called Kim whether the redhead was home or at school or at work.

Kim did think it was sweet that she got a phone call from her spouse every hour to make sure that she was all right. Shego always asked if she was okay and how she was feeling. She would then ask about the baby and if the baby was behaving. She would offer to come out if Kim needed her or anything. Obviously, Shego sort of encouraged Kim's totally spoiled behavior, but she never noticed. She would have dismissed it anyway because Kim was spoiled already, so she would not see any harm in it.

The day she did get a phone call from Kim made Shego immediately think something was wrong. It was an emergency, but nothing was wrong. It was the middle of summer and Kim had gone into labor. The only person home with her was Todd. Shego practically flew out of the headquarters and her speed alone let Betty know what happened.

--------------

Isabel was pacing in the waiting room of the hospital. James and Ann Possible watched her go from their seats; it was like pacing through her, which kept them from pacing with her. Betty was also watching Isabel, not surprised to see the older woman there, even though she was fairly certain that Shego had not called her mother in. She was right; Shego did not have to call her mother.

Shego's younger brothers had come for the event; Mego had came in with Isabel while the Wegos already lived in Go City. The Possible twins were there too. The twins were all busy themselves by telling Todd of all of the things that he needed to do with his summer. Todd was happy to be with his guardians for the summer and that was enough for him, even though they had signed him up for swimming again and baseball. He still swam like a rock, but getting better at baseball with every game.

Kim's friends had shown up, even though they had little babies to look at out for. They just figured that Kim had been there for them, the least they could do was be there for her. They were also curious about the baby. Kim had not told them what she was supposed to be having. She had not told them much, saying she wanted them all to be surprised. As far as almost everyone was concerned, the biggest surprise would be if the baby came out with pale green skin.

In fact, when Shego came to inform them that Kim had given birth to a baby girl, they almost all wanted to ask about the skin color before anything else. They refrained, though. They would see soon enough, anyway.

"So, she cursed a lot?" Ron asked Shego curiously, referring to Kim. They were walking to the hospital room.

"In four languages," Shego answered plainly.

"Promised to kill you after the baby arrived?" he continued on.

"Tried to get up to kill me while the baby was still coming," she replied.

The blonde businessman nodded; he and Shego had just bonded, not that either of them knew it. Yori had cursed him out in three languages, two of which he understood quite clearly, and promised to kill him during the most painful moments of labor. The death threat was something that Felix had gladly missed out on when Monique was cursing him out when she was in labor.

When everyone went to see Kim and the baby, they were surprised by how worn out Kim appeared. They had never seen her look tired, but she looked absolutely done in, even though she was smiling quite happily too. It was something that they could understand, though. She had been in labor for close to twenty hours.

Everyone got a good look at the baby, who was a tiny thing as far as they were concerned. The baby did weigh seven pounds, but she just looked so small. She had chubby cheeks and her olive green eyes stared out at everyone as if she was asking who the hell they were; her expression actually led them to believe that she was definitely Shego's daughter because her face did make it seem like she was cursing at them in her head. She had light brown hair and her skin was a peach complexion like Kim's, so it seemed pretty clear to all those having crazy thoughts that, no, Shego had not magically done anything to Kim to get the scientist pregnant.

Everyone stayed until they were pretty much kicked out, Shego included. Shego returned as soon as she could, though. Kim smiled, still appearing tired, but happy, when her spouse came back. Todd was not with Shego.

"Hey, where's our little gremlin?" Kim asked in a curious tone.

"Hanging out with his Grandma and Mee-ma," Shego answered as she approached the hospital bed and kissed Kim on the forehead.

"They're keeping him away from his uncles, right?" the redhead asked with concern. His uncles were just always looking to get him into something insane.

"You know it," Shego replied while looking down at their sleeping daughter, who was in Kim's arms.

"You know, we still don't have a name," Kim pointed out.

Shego nodded because it was the truth. "Well, what do you want to name her?" she asked, figuring Kim might as well name the baby since she had been the one that went through the trouble of carrying their daughter around for so long.

"I want you to name her," Kim replied because that was the plain truth. She figured that naming the baby would give Shego a deeper connection to their child.

Shego nodded again. She stared at their daughter and wondered what to name the girl. What did she look like? She watched the child move a bit in her sleep, instinctively cuddling up closer to her mother. The baby yawned and then Shego just blurted a name out.

"Jayden," Shego said.

"Okay, but why?" Kim asked. It seemed to come so easy to her spouse now that she was on the spot. They had gone through hundreds of names for nine months and in less than nine seconds, Shego had come up with a name that they both liked.

"Well, I was going to say 'Jade,' but even that's a bit too conventional for my tastes," Shego answered. To her, their daughter did look like a "Jayden," though; her wife would agree.

"We can call her Jade for short," Kim suggested.

Shego nodded because that worked for her. So, they now had a daughter, who would be named Jayden True Possible-Gooding when it was all said and done. It was wonderfully pleasant and satisfying feeling to have a little baby girl, they both noted. How long would that feeling last, though?

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Next time: can Kim and Shego balance their attention between Todd and Jayden? Also Todd gets a birthday party while Mayah and Bokuden get to know each other.


	18. Reason Eighteen: Unforgettable

I don't own these characters and I don't own the original premise of this saga. I also don't own the Care Bears…although I do have a blanket, but let's not tell anyone about that. I do own Todd, Jayden, Mayah, Bokuden, and Raziya though.

Reason Eighteen: Unforgettable

_We all promise to love and protect you forever always…_

Todd was happy that he still had almost a month of summer vacation left when Jayden was born. He was looking forward to spending time with her. He wanted to get to know his new sister, especially after coming to a startling revelation. He found out that he really loved the tiny creature and all he had to do was hold her to figure that one out.

Todd had actually expected to hate his baby sister. Part of him still thought that she was going to take his She-she and Kimmie from him, but as he held the small being in his arms, nothing inside of him could hate her. All he could do was love little Jayden and promise once again to be the best big brother to her as he possibly could. He was going to protect her from any and all harm.

The redheaded boy did wonder why Jayden slept so much, though. Kim and Shego had been warned that for about the first week or so their baby girl might sleep almost twenty-three hours a day, but that would decline as time went on. They did not mind; it was better than her being up for twenty-three hours a day.

Jayden really did not sleep as much as her parents were led to believe. One of them would rock her to sleep and then put her down in her crib. The parent would make it to the door and then Jayden would start crying as if she was in dire distress. They were starting to believe that she did not like either the crib or the room. They were not sure which it was, but then they started putting her down to sleep in their bed and she did sleep most of the day away there, happily curled up with a Care Bear blanket and using one of the pillows almost like a mattress since she was so small.

Kim and Shego still slept in their bed with the baby when she was in there at night. They had been advised against it, but Isabel told them that she used to sleep near her kids when they were babies too. She said that she slept much lighter than usual, which was already damn-near close to not sleeping at all, when a baby was near her and she was willing to bet that they would be the same. She was right. Kim and Shego slept extra-light around the baby and woke up from the slightest movement from anyone in the bed, so they were confident that they were not going to roll over onto Jayden.

Since the parents were now sleeping three to a bed, Todd decided that he was going to try his best to sleep in his own bed every night. Once again, he did not hold any animosity toward Jayden for seeming to take his extra space in their parents' bed. He understood that they needed to be close to the baby; Jayden was certainly too small to take care of herself, so their parents had to do it. Besides, he was soon going to be eight years old.

Todd had a birthday coming up in a couple of months and he acknowledged that he was growing up. So, he needed to stop sharing the bed with his guardians, he told himself. Shego noticed his effort and she was proud of him, although she did not say so out loud. She did not want him to start thinking that he needed to get along without them.

Having Jayden and Todd to take care of was a handful, though, even for two extraordinary females like Kim and Shego. They both wanted to get in time with their kids and it was difficult to balance with Todd being an active child and them not wanting to take Jayden outside right away. They settled on one of them taking Todd to his activities while the other stayed with Jayden.

----(New day)

"That was a great game you had, champ," Shego congratulated Todd one more time as they entered the house. He just grinned proudly, but found himself to be very talkative when he saw Kim to be at the top of the stairs.

"Kimmie! Kimmie, guess what?" he said excitedly while running to the stairs to meet her. He embraced her tightly, almost as if he had not seen her in months instead of the hours that it actually was.

"Shh," Kim said. "Jade just fell asleep," she informed them.

"But, you gotta listen!" he implored her.

"Yeah, you gotta listen," Shego teased her wife with a smirk on her face.

"Okay, just tell me quietly," Kim begged as they all went to the living room.

Todd agreed, but he did not keep his word. He explained, almost as loudly as possible, how he had hit a grand-slam to win the baseball game. He did not mean to be so loud, but he was just so excited. His excitement was understandable considering the fact that it was not everyday a kid hit a grand-slam to win a game. As he spoke, he noticed his Kimmie kept glancing upstairs and he did not seem to like it.

"You're not listening, Kimmie!" Todd practically howled.

"I am," Kim insisted.

"No, you're not! I hit a grand slam, Kimmie! I won the game!" Todd shouted and then the baby started crying.

"Sorry, Smiley. Hold that thought," Kim said.

"I've got the baby," Shego said, recognizing that if the redhead left now, their son would be absolutely crushed. He might even think that Kim preferred the baby over him.

"Oh, okay," Kim agreed and with that, she turned her complete attention to Todd, who grinned.

The little baseball player got to continue his story and that time, Kim actually seemed interested. He was glad for that while Shego left the room to go check on their baby girl, who was sleeping in their room as usual. Shego smiled, even though the baby was crying.

Jayden was just four weeks old, but they were already starting to figure out what her cries meant. It made their lives easier to know just what she was hollering about and that was why they were learning fast. Shego went over to the baby and picked her up, rocking her in her arms.

"It's okay, mini-monster. Mommy's here," Shego whispered. Yes, she had already dubbed Jayden her "mini-monster." Kim had graduated to her "mega-monster."

Jayden did quiet down and she curled up into Shego's warm chest. The action made the green-skinned parent smile inwardly. She always smiled in someway when she held Jayden. The baby just made her feel overwhelmingly happy whenever they were together. Just thinking about Jayden made her feel pleased. She sometimes wondered if her mother felt the same when she was born and that was why Isabel acted so…crazy; yes, she thought her mother just acted crazy when it came to her. She was not going to act like her mother when it came to Jayden, she told herself.

The pale woman continued to rock the child for a few minutes before putting her down on the bed. She lay down next to baby, very close. She put her hand out for Jayden to grab, which the child did. Jayden then started trying to pull one of Shego's fingers into her mouth, but the happy mother was not allowing her to do so. Jayden took exception to the denial and began fussing again.

Shego laughed a bit and got up. She rushed into the bathroom and washed her hand. She returned to the bed and gave Jayden just what she wanted, namely her pinky finger. Shego kept her claw-like nails cut down to nubs on the left hand since Jayden's birth. She had filed down the nails on her right hand, but not enough to where she thought it was safe for Jayden to play with her right hand. She kept her nails on her right hand because they were weapon for her to use out on assignments at work.

Jayden giggled while suckling on Shego's pinky. The pale woman did not mind it because she damn sure was not getting their daughter a pacifier. She had declared the day that they got Jayden home that she did not need a pacifier and she promptly tossed away the one the hospital had given the baby. Jayden did not seem to care about that the moment that she discovered her mommy had a pinky.

Their alone time together was interrupted as Kim and Todd came in. Kim came in because it was close to meal time for the baby and Todd came in just to see his little sister. He leaned over his She-she's back and started making faces at Jayden, who grinned in response.

"You better have clean hands, bat-boy," Shego said to Todd.

"I washed 'em real good," he assured her with a smile while reacting over to tickle Jayden. She laughed at her brother's antics, but she made sure not to let go of her mommy's pinky finger.

"You better had, booger," the raven-haired woman replied. "I don't want to have to tickle you," she informed him.

"I don't want you to neither," he declared wholeheartedly.

Shego could not help laughing a bit at that. They played with Jayden until she started crying, letting them know that she was hungry. Todd ran off to go play some video games while Kim got situated to feed Jayden. She did breastfeed, which only opened up for a new way for Shego to get on her nerves, even though she knew that it was done out of concern.

Shego kept on Kim about making sure to drink plenty of fluids, especially water. Kim usually made mocking hand gestures while Shego lectured her about her diet, which earned her an admonishing, but very light slap on the wrist more often than not. On a few occasions, Kim did respond to the lectures by pointing out that her mother was a doctor and she knew about watching her diet and everything. Shego would then snidely point out that her mother was a neurosurgeon, not an obstetrician.

Debates between them died down as Jayden got a little older. It was mostly because they settled into a routine. The pattern continued even at the summer's end and Todd had to go back to his biological parents. Jayden did seem to miss her big brother, though, crying sometimes for no reason at all that her parents could see, except that it was usually the time that Todd came into the room and he would read a story to the baby.

Todd's favorite thing to do with the baby was to read to Jayden, which Kim and Shego were happy about. It helped out in many ways. It allowed their kids to bond, it helped Todd practice on his reading, and someone should read to Jayden; they had been told so by their mothers. They all actually read to Jayden and they were pretty sure that most people would object to what they read.

Kim read Jayden science books, mostly ones that she had to read for class or ones that she was reading for research purposes. Shego read action novels to the child. Todd read anything that interested him, which could range from video game magazines to horror stories on the teenage level. They figured if Jayden understood them, she had to be a very confused baby from the reading material.

----(New day)

"Princess, what should we do for the gremlin's birthday?" Shego wondered out loud. She was lying on the sofa with Jayden lying on her chest. She had been asleep not too long ago with her arm securing Jayden to her and unbeknownst to her, Kim had snapped a picture of the sleeping pair.

"We should throw him a party. He made a lot of friends over the summer, so they should be able to attend. I bet he would love that," Kim suggested. She was sitting on the floor, leaning against the sofa and just enjoying the silence. Praise be to the sleeping gods, she thought since Jayden was out like a light. The baby had been crying most of the day and driving her parents insane…more so than they already were.

"You sure you want a bunch of people over here with Jade around?" Shego asked. She knew that she did not like that idea, so she doubted that her spouse was too thrilled with it since they tended to be on the same wavelength on what they wanted to do with the baby.

"Well, I'd rather a bunch of people over here than taking Jade to some noisy kid's restaurant or something," the redhead answered.

"I guess you make a point," the pale woman conceded while rubbing the baby's back. Jayden cooed in her sleep.

"It would be a nice surprise for him. You know as well I do that he's never had a birthday party. So, we'll invite some of his friends and tell his grandparents and his uncles and he'll have a blast," Kim explained.

"And what are we going to do with the baby?"

"I would say she could go spend some time with one of the other babies, but our mothers are probably going to want to see her," Kim thought aloud.

"No, I think it is better if we let her go hang out with one of the other babies. It's Smiles' big day, so all the focus should be on him," Shego stated.

Kim nodded in agreement. She noticed that Todd sometimes got huffy when he wanted attention, but focus was on Jayden. So, it would be a good idea for Jayden to be some place else on his birthday if his grandparents came. The last thing that they wanted was for the boy to be depressed because his Grandma, Grandpa, and Mee-ma were paying more attention to Jayden than to him on his birthday.

"So, where do you want to take Jayden that day?" Kim asked curiously. They had many options with Todd's birthday being a Saturday.

"You don't think he's going to want your friends there too? He does look at them as like his friends," Shego pointed out.

"That's true."

"This is complicated."

"It is," Kim concurred. "Well, if Betty watches everybody, then I guess my friends would come by for a couple of hours," she figured. "Especially since it's for a good cause."

"I guess Bets might watch everybody for a couple of hours. Mayah already drives her crazy. What harm could three more brats do? Especially when two of them can't even walk yet," Shego pointed out.

"That's true. And Bo can barely walk," Kim added in.

"Then it's settled."

Or it would be settled when Betty agreed to baby-sit for everyone. Kim's friends did agree to come to Todd's party for a few hours, as along as Betty was going to baby-sit. So, now, Betty was the deciding factor in everything. Shego asked Betty the very next time she saw her, which happened to be at work.

"Yo, Bets," Shego called to the boss the second that she saw her. The one-eyed woman was coming out of her office, probably to yell at someone, but the pale woman could care less about that.

"What?" Betty replied in an annoyed tone. She was about to go holler at some of her more incompetent employees that did not seem to pass fifth grade English, or so the state of their reports lead her to believe.

"Do me a favor," the green-skinned female said.

"What kind of favor?"

"We need a babysitter on Todd's birthday."

"Why?" Betty asked curiously while making her way over to Shego. She did not feel like shouting about babysitting through out the whole floor. They strolled over to Shego's desk while they spoke.

"Look, we want to throw Todd a big birthday bash since his birthday is on a Saturday. He gets a little testy about things that are supposed to be about him, but we're worrying about Jade and paying attention to her. So, we figured that for his birthday, it would be best if Jade wasn't around," the emerald-eyed female explained.

"I guess that would be the trouble with being an only child and then having a baby around. I guess I could watch Jade. She's actually well behaved…I don't know which one of you she could possibly get that from," Betty remarked.

Shego had a deadpan expression on her face from that. "It's not just Jade. Kimmie's friends agreed to come to the party, but they need a baby-sitter too," she continued on.

"Whoa, you want me to watch two other brats too?"

"Yeah, for a few hours."

"I don't know about this…" Betty said hesitantly.

"Come on, Mayah is the worst of the bunch since she can walk and shit like that," Shego pointed out.

"Mayah's a good baby," Betty argued. Her daughter was fine by her anyway.

"Tell me that lie again," Shego said. She had been around Mayah enough to know that the girl was not the little angel Betty would like the world to believe. Mayah was the type of baby that preferred to go after things after being told "no" or "don't touch." She also had an unhealthy fixation with grabbing parts of the face, especially lips and eyebrows.

"Well, how many hours are we talking?" Betty inquired. She did not think it would be so bad since Jayden and Raziya were not many months old and Jayden was a lazy baby anyway; they joked that Jayden was probably a cat in past life with the way that she slept.

"About three hours. Todd's party isn't going to be too long," Shego replied.

"Why? Because when Jade's away it weakens your powers?" Betty teased.

"Hardy, har, har," the emerald-eyed officer said dryly.

"I guess I can do my part. Why wasn't I invited, though?" the brown-haired woman asked, as if she was insulted.

"Somebody has to watch the babies," Shego answered in a "duh" kind of voice, like that response was obvious.

"Watch your mouth, or I won't do it."

"Nah, it's seriously just that we need someone to watch the kids. I'm sure he'd love it if his Aunty Betty showed up, but we don't want to leave Falsetto with four brats, now do we?" Shego pointed out.

"Don't call him that. Dahntay would have his hands full, but he probably wouldn't agree to this. Fine, I'll watch the brats and be excluded from the party."

"Well, you could always come by and pick them up and wish the gremlin a happy birthday. I'm sure he'll love it."

Betty agreed. "Well, then, I need to find the little badass a gift. What did you two get him?"

"A bike, a telescope, and an educational video game as the 'big' gifts, as Kimmie likes to call them. For the little gifts, we got him some toys from a couple of shows that he likes," Shego answered.

Betty nodded. She supposed that she could go buy him something after work. She tried to think of the things that he liked that she knew about anyway. She knew what she would get him within seconds.

----(New day)

Betty came over to Shego's house, looking to pick up the kids and wish Todd a happy birthday. She was surprised when the door was opened to find the house did not look like it was ready for a party, even though it was almost one and she thought that the party started in about an hour. She was curious about that.

"Hey, Bets," Shego said as she came out of the kitchen area.

"Hey, where's all the—" Betty was cut off.

"It's a surprise," the pale woman said. They had not put any of the decorations up yet because the party was going to be a surprise for their little son.

"Oh, so when is it going to start?" the one-eyed woman inquired. She was not sure if they would be able to pull off a party in an hour since nothing was up yet.

"About an hour. Kimmie's friends are going to stick around for a little while and then bid us ado in order to rescue you from the brats, so don't worry. Everybody's in the living room, though."

Betty nodded and she went to the living room, along with her very obvious gift. Kim and her friends along with everyone's progeny were in there. Kim was holding Jayden, who was sleeping, which was far from surprising. Felix had Raziya, who was just as knocked out as Jayden. Bokuden was holding onto Yori's leg while reaching for a cookie that Ron was holding. Todd was focusing on the pile of gifts that he already had.

"Bo, this is my cookie, so stop it," Ron ordered, but his son continued reaching, which he expected. He thought Bokuden was way too greedy and he knew that was saying something coming from him. Bokuden ate everything he possibly could and tried to eat the impossible things.

"I think that nightshift job Jade and Razi work is starting to get to them," Monique remarked.

"Let her sleep. It's much better than when she gets to screaming," Felix commented with a sigh. Raziya had some lungs on her.

"Yeah, that's making me look forward to this," Betty remarked in a highly sarcastic tone.

"Don't worry. We totally appreciate this," Ron assured her.

"I'm sure," Betty said and she rolled her eye. She would appreciate it too if someone was coming to relieve her of her child for a few hours.

"Aunt Betty!" Todd grinned and he ran over to hug her. She mussed his short, crimson hair while returning the embrace.

"Happy birthday, Smiley," she replied while presenting him with her present.

"Wow, why'd you even bother to wrap that one?" Kim inquired, speaking to Betty.

"Do you want me to tell Shego you're being a brat?" Betty countered.

Kim decided not to respond to that one. Todd seemed happy enough with the gift, especially since he knew what it was; it was baseball bat. He could always use a new baseball bat. Betty then quickly grabbed up the babies and loaded them into a mini-van she had recently brought; she planned on having more kids, so she thought that the mini-van was a sound investment.

While putting the kids into the van, everyone was trying to let Betty know about their kids particular quirks since she only knew Jayden well and Jayden had the least amount of quirks being only two months old. Raziya was only four months old and would probably sleep as long as Jayden did, which would more than likely be the whole babysitting job, but in case she woke up, Felix and Monique told Betty that if their baby had her little toy squid, she would be fine. The squid was in the baby bag, along with bottles and diapers.

Bokuden was the really weird one. He was nine months old and could walk for the most part. He liked walking into walls for some reason that his parents could not figure out. He also had a thing for reaching for food, even if it was not his and he was not below taking one of the babies' bottles and drinking from it. Betty sighed; Bokuden was going to be a handful more than likely.

With the babies out of the way, their parents went to prepare for Todd's party. Ron had the job of getting Todd out of the house until they got everything together and people started arriving. Ron liked his job because it was easy and he got to hang out with Todd. He really liked Todd and sort of viewed himself as a father-figure in the boy's life, which was how Todd looked at him. He decided to take Todd to an arcade because he had been told not to get the boy any food because there would be food when they got back.

--------------

Betty was helped by Dahntay in bringing the babies in the house; it was a good thing that Bokuden could and enjoyed walking or they would have had a problem. She put the babies in the den, which was where she usually let Mayah play. Jayden and Raziya were still sleeping, hard. Bokuden seemed to be wired, though.

The one-eyed woman put the television on for Bokuden, hoping that would work for calming him down. It did not; he did not even seem to notice that the television was on. He just started wandering the den, walking into everything and taking that as a sign to turn in another direction.

"This kid is weird," Betty muttered about Bokuden.

She decided to keep an eye on him to make sure he did not hurt himself until her own baby woke up from a nap. Dahntay watched Bokuden while Betty went to get Mayah. The little girl grinned widely when her mother showed up and picked her up from the crib.

Mayah had five of her front teeth and showed them off whenever she smiled, which was very often. She was pretty happy with life it seemed and showed that with her expression. She especially smiled when her parents were around or when she got to see Todd for some reason that was beyond everyone. She actually bothered Todd a bit because she always wanted him to pick her up when he was around, but the little boy was reluctant to hold her since she was getting kind of big and he was scared that he might drop her.

"How's my big girl?" Betty asked Mayah while kissing the child's chubby cheek.

"Mommmeeee!" Mayah cheered. Her eyes shined with delight from the attention of her mother; her mismatched eyes. She was sporting one brown eye and one onyx eye; the colors coming from each of her parents.

"Come on, I'll let you go hang out with a crazy blonde boy," Betty informed her daughter.

She carried Mayah down to the den and put her down next to Bokuden. The two children looked at each other for a long moment, having never actually met before. Mayah was the first to act, walking over to Bokuden and slapping him in the face.

"No!" Betty scolded Mayah. "No hitting, Mayah," she said and she lightly slapped her daughter's hand.

Mayah looked up at her mother as if she was asking why she was being admonished. She then turned back to Bokuden, who did not seem to care that he had been smacked in the face. It would seem that Mayah figured it would take a lot more to get to the new kid in the house, so she pushed him. Bokuden fell back while Betty reprimanded her child again. Bokuden just sat there for a moment and then he stood back up. He strolled over Mayah and then head-butted the one-year-old, having to practically jump to do so since Mayah was taller than he was. He had to struggle to keep his balance after that act.

Betty could not believe what she was seeing as Mayah fell back. The little girl rubbed her forehead with her short, pudgy fingers for a few seconds. She then climbed to her feet. She walked over to Bokuden and Betty thought that she might have to break up a baby fight, but then the children did something exceptionally weird; they started laughing. It would seem that pair had bonded over the abuse.

--------------

Todd could not believe what was happening and he could not smile wide enough as it occurred. He was overjoyed to find out that his She-she and Kimmie had thrown him a birthday party. Surprisingly enough, as soon as he found out, the first thing that he asked was where his baby sister was, apparently wanting her to be present for his birthday. It was explained to him that it would have been hard to throw the party and take care of all of the babies, so Betty had decided to help out by taking the babies for the day. Todd seemed to understand that.

It was a pizza party, which really delighted Todd and he made sure to have all of the piazza that he could eat; Kim tried the same thing, but every time she was trying to get a slice, Shego would call her for something. Attending the party were Todd's friends from his baseball league that he played in over the summer and other friends from his swim classes. And the most brilliant move of all, well for the moment anyway, was the acrobatic clown.

"You know he's going to be doing shit like this later on, right?" Shego whispered to Kim as they watched the clown walk on his hands through out the backyard. The kids thought that it was great.

"Ah, he does crazy things anyway," Kim replied with a smile. They were going to have deal with some bizarre stunts for a little while after Todd saw the clown work though, and she knew that.

"Where the hell did you find a clown like this anyway?" the pale woman inquired curiously.

"He's actually a friend of Yori's from her high school. He lost a bet to me a little while ago and this is payback," the redhead explained.

Shego nodded to that. She checked her watch to see what time it was to see if the masterstroke of the whole party was going to be there soon. Kim checked Shego's watch too; the hero did not wear a watch of her own. They figured that everything would fall into place soon.

"Oh, pizza!" the couple heard four familiar voices declare.

"The things we do for this boy," Shego muttered with a tired sigh. The four voices belonged to pair of twins, her brothers and Kim's brothers. She hated the fact that her brothers now knew where she lived.

Todd went wild when his uncles came to greet him; all of his uncles except for Hego had shown up. And then, after he saw his uncles, he went even crazier to find his grandparents, not counting Jason, in the living room. He had a trillion and one things that he wanted to say and do with his grandparents, but first, he wanted to know if his Grandpa and uncles were going to do anything with rockets. The answer: yes, of course.

Jim and Tim, along with their father, set up a fireworks display in the backyard. They planned on it being the finale of the whole party, which worked for Todd's guardians as long as everything went according to plan and nothing blew up before schedule or set anything on fire. Todd was not as happy about it, wanting to blow something up immediately, which his uncles could relate to from when they were his age.

Todd then had a ball introducing his friends to his uncles and grandparents. His friends' parents thought that it was so cute that he so clearly admired his uncles and grandparents. He did not seem to notice his excited behavior, but that was because he was like that around them all the time. Isabel and Ann did think it was so adorable that he was so happy that they were all their for his first birthday party ever.

--------------

Bokuden was obviously a bottomless pit when it came to eating it would seem. Betty had given him juice and applesauce along with giving the same to Mayah. Bokuden practically inhaled his food and then started eating Mayah's snack by sticking his hand in the applesauce cup. Mayah gave him a look as if saying she could not believe what the hell he was doing and then she slapped him. Bokuden did not even flinch and just kept on eating.

Betty separated the pair while Mayah finished her food. Bokuden walked over to Raziya, who was still sleeping and just stared at her. Raziya was out of his reach, napping in her car seat; Jayden was next to her. Since he could not reach the babies, the blonde boy went back to Mayah, wanting her food again.

"This kid is unbelievable," Betty muttered.

Dahntay brought more juice and applesauce for Bokuden, which appeased the boy for the moment. Dahntay thought that Bokuden was a funny child because he really did just want to eat everything that he could. Since he had been there, Bokuden had grabbed for anything that Betty or Dahntay had in their hands when he was paying attention to the couple, whether it was edible or not. He bit into anything that he could get his hands on, most of which was not for consuming, but he would have tried to devour them if one of the adults did not thwart his attempts.

When it was clear that he was not going to be able to eat any and everything, Bokuden went back to wandering the den until Mayah was done with her snack. The two of them watched a television show together, pushing each other through out the show. They did not hit each other with enough force to do anything harmful, but they seemed to be having fun with it and no one interfered.

Three hours after the babysitting gig started, Bokuden and Raziya were picked up by their parents. Mayah seemed rather upset that Bokuden was leaving. Betty guessed her daughter had enjoyed the slap-boxing contest that they had engaged in for the afternoon.

"How were they?" Monique inquired.

"Raziya might not be human. She yawned once while she was here and that was it," Betty answered, joking a bit. Raziya had easily slept through the whole stay, just like Jayden did.

"Because she's lazy like her daddy," Monique remarked.

"I'm not lazy. It's just you're here, so why should I have to move?" Felix teased with a charming smile.

"What about Bo? How much of the fridge did he clean out?" Ron asked curiously.

"All of it, pretty much," Betty joked. She was going to have to go out and buy some more applesauce, though. It was Mayah's favorite treat and Bokuden had eaten four in the pack and only six came in a pack.

"That's my boy," Ron declared proudly.

"I've been led to believe that's the problem," Betty quipped with a smug look on her face.

"Oh, burned!" Monique teased Ron, getting a good laugh at his expense.

Ron could care less about the jokes; he had heard them all since Bokuden was born. The blonde child and Raziya were dressed to leave. Their things were gathered and they were on their way. Mayah seemed to instantly miss her company.

"Come on, Mayah. We've still got Jade," Betty pointed out.

Mayah grinned. "See Jade?" she requested, seeming fond of the baby.

Betty nodded and they returned to the den. She moved Jayden onto the floor; the baby was still sleeping in her car seat. Mayah stared at Jayden and just grinned. Betty had to watch Mayah carefully, though. Mayah had no problem with slapping Jayden, even though she knew it was wrong. She typically just waited until no one was looking to knock Jayden a few times and when Jayden started to cry, she would act like she did not know why. Sometimes she would even have the nerve to say "cry a lot" while pointing at Jayden, as if the baby was just bawling for no reason.

--------------

The fireworks to end Todd's birthday went off without a hitch, which was a surprise since Jim and Tim were involved. The party went great as far as Kim and Shego could tell. The kids loved the party favors and everyone enjoyed a piece of one of the three cakes that had been purchased; Shego had actually wanted to bake the cakes herself, but there just was not enough time for it. Todd liked the part where he got to open all of his gifts most of all, outside of his uncles and grandparents showing up.

Once the guests were gone, Shego went to pick up Jayden and told Betty to come by the house. Betty did not ask why, but she did want to know if she should bring Mayah. Shego confirmed that she should and she also hollered for Dahntay to "bring his simple ass too." How could he refuse that _wonderful _invitation?

The couple did wonder what Shego wanted with them, but they followed behind her in their car. When they got the house, they saw that Kim's friends were back and Todd wondered what was going on too. They all gathered in the kitchen and Shego pulled out another cake; that one she did make herself. And they all sang "happy birthday" to Todd, some for the second time that day and others for the first, but they were all happy to do it. Todd would never forget his eighth birthday.

--------------

Next time: Kim and Shego host Thanksgiving dinner at their home for both of their families.


	19. Reason Nineteen: Get together

I don't own these characters or the original premise this saga is based on. I also don't own Care Bears.

Reason Nineteen: Get together

_Have mercy on us all as we host Thanksgiving for both of our families…_

The fall holidays were interesting with Todd and Jayden around. For Halloween, Todd wanted to go out trick-or-treating with Jayden. He just did not want to accept that she was only a baby and not capable of doing much outside of sleeping most of the day and crying. All he knew was that Jayden was another body to get candy and the beauty of it was that she would not be able to eat the candy, meaning he would have to handle that task for her. It was a brilliant plan in his opinion that his parents did not go for.

"C'mon, Kimmie! We could all go dressed up as dinosaurs and Jade would be the baby dino!" Todd declared with an enthused grin.

"No, Smiley. Jayden isn't big enough for Halloween yet. Give her a few years," Kim replied with a smile.

"A few years?" he groaned as if he was in serious pain. That was like forever! "She-she, tell Kimmie to let Jade come!" he requested.

Shego was in the living room on the sofa with Jayden. She was giving Jayden a bottle. The baby was content with being fed and eyeing her mother with an intense look in her deep olive eyes. The little girl did look off to the side when Todd called for their mother.

"Smiley, Jade is staying in. You need to be happy that we're even letting you go out. I don't trust strangers giving you candy and shit like that," Shego pointed out and she was being honest about that. If she could have her way, Todd would stay his narrow ass inside on Halloween.

"It's okay, Shego. I get Wade to scan the candy," Kim informed her spouse. She had the same worries as Shego when it came to Halloween, which was why she did get Wade to scan their son's swag from trick-or-treating.

"Good to know, but Jade still isn't going out," Shego said before Todd could start a new argument on why his baby sister should be allowed out with him.

Todd pouted, but that did not get him anywhere. On Halloween, he went out trick-or-treating with Kim again, talking her in dressing up as the Robin to his Batman. She mentally commented that she was starting to see a trend the boy. Shego stayed in with Jayden while making sure not to answer the door for any little beggars. Jayden seemed content for the most part to in the company of her mommy.

After Halloween, Kim and Shego had to worry about Thanksgiving. They knew both sides of their families would want them over for Thanksgiving, mostly because of the kids on the Gooding side. But, to be fair, the Wegos would not mind seeing their big sister; the same could be said of Mego as long as Shego acknowledged the attention-starved man in some way.

Kim came up with the solution and it was a horrible idea in her spouse's opinion. The hero suggested that they do Thanksgiving at their house that year. Shego was against it from the start, but had somehow been talked into it; her caving in might have had something to do with Kim doing something crazy with her tongue late one night. Shego would not even think about that one without blushing.

But, also having Thanksgiving at their house was the easiest way for their families to see them and their family. Besides, it was not like she was protecting her home address from her brothers. They already knew where she lived. Hell, the Wegos came through on some weekends to take Todd out to do whatever. Todd loved it, so it did not bother Shego and her brothers had matured some, so they did not purposely get on her nerves much anymore. They did still occasionally hit on Kim, though. They defended themselves by saying it was not their fault that their sister-in-law was hot; the Possible twins used the same excuse.

The thought of Thanksgiving at their house did bother Shego, though. She could already picture her mother looming over her while she was preparing food and just thinking about it pissed her off. She always hoped that her mother did not bring her father, but she was certain that Isabel would. Isabel seemed to make it her mission to get Jason to accept what was happening come Hell or high water. He was resisting like a brain-dead mule, though.

Still, Shego agreed with the idea and decided that they would try Thanksgiving at their house for the first time. She invited Betty and Dahntay over since they were pretty much family and they accepted the invitation, although Betty did annoyingly insist on bringing something and Shego was resisting that. Kim invited her friends too, but they had plans, which had been expected of them. They were going to Middleton for the holiday weekend.

--------------

"Can I help?" Kim inquired, popping her head in the kitchen. It was the morning before Thanksgiving. Shego had started cooking for the big meal already because she was not going to have time to do it that night. They had to go pick up Todd, after all.

"No. Go watch Jade," the raven-haired officer answered.

"She's sleeping again," the redhead answered as if she was disappointed. She did get a kick out of playing games with Jayden and making faces at the baby that got their child to giggle, so it sometimes saddened her when Jayden was sleeping.

"She takes after you with that," Shego commented. Jayden was starting to show signs of being like Kim in the fact that when she was up, she wanted to be doing something, but when she was sleeping, she was out, especially if she had happened to be sleeping on her green-skinned mommy.

"I'm going to take that as a compliment," the hero replied with a smile.

"Take it however you want, but you're not helping."

"Why not?" Kim practically cried as if Shego had wounded her deeply, but she was just playing around. She did hope that the tone and expression on her face would win her some kind of sympathy, so she could help with something while she had the time.

"Because I don't need your help," the pale woman pointed out.

"Well, why not?" the younger female huffed. She would like to be a part of their first Thanksgiving in their home with both of their families joined together.

"Because," Shego replied with a growl and then she turned around to face her spouse, only to see Kim looking pitiful, yet serious. She sighed. "Fine, you want to help?" she asked just to be sure.

"Yeah," Kim answered with a nod.

"Okay, you can make macaroni salad," Shego said.

Kim grinned and nodded. She made it through the dish before Jayden began crying and that called the redhead away from the kitchen for the moment anyway. Shego continued on with her work and was ambushed by her monsters. She laughed as Kim pretended to have Jayden hanging on her back.

"Say hi to Mommy, Jade," Kim said and the baby gurgled. "Look at that! She said hi," the redhead joked.

"Okay, okay, okay. Leave Mommy alone now," Shego replied while turning her attention back to the food.

"Aw, Mommy isn't paying attention to us, Jade. Mommy doesn't love her girls," Kim said and that caught Shego's attention.

"Don't ever say anything like that!" Shego ordered with so much force that Kim looked totally stunned and Jayden burst into tears.

Shego realized how random and shocking her screaming had to seem. She did not mean to say that and she certainly did not mean to say it to the point where it scared her wife and daughter. It was just a sensitive subject with her because she sometimes thought that Kim might actually think that she cared less about Jayden because of how the baby was conceived.

"I'm sorry," the green-skinned woman apologized immediately, which was very unlike her. But then again, that outburst was totally uncalled for and her mate looked so surprised it that she had to apologize right away. She approached Kim and wrapped her arms around the smaller female.

"What was that about?" Kim asked quietly. She understood that Shego was a bit stressed with the idea having Thanksgiving at their home and she was doing the bulk of the cooking, but she did not think that justified the explosion.

"Just never don't ever say anything like that. I love you both very much," Shego replied, looking into Kim's eyes so that the redhead knew that she was telling the truth.

"I know you do. I was just joking," the hero informed her spouse. Of course she was joking. She would never mean something so course and harsh.

"Just don't joke like that, Princess. Especially not while she's so little. Something like that might actually sink in or something," the pale officer stated while moving her left hand to rub Jayden's back with the hope of calming the baby down since she was still crying.

"I guess," Kim agreed. Maybe something like that would stick with the baby, so she should watch what she said, she thought.

"I love both of you," Shego repeated and she kissed Kim's forehead and then she kissed Jayden's forehead. The baby was finally starting to calm down.

They all started hugged up until Jayden stopped crying. Kim then took Jayden off to the side of the kitchen, so that they could be with Shego while she was cooking. Every now and then, Shego turned away from her task and went to mess with the baby, who seemed to enjoy the attention every time that it came because Jayden grinned as wide as Kim would when Shego came over. Kim kept Jayden around in the kitchen even after she fell back to sleep because she just believed that Shego would appreciate them being around and she was right.

Kim did wonder why Shego had taken that joke so badly, though. She could understand that it might be something that could possibly stick with the baby and she would not want Jayden to ever think that Shego did not love either of them, but the outburst seemed beyond that. She wondered if Shego was silently bothered about Jayden not being biologically linked to her and she had taken the joke badly because it was something that bothered her. The redhead did not see why that would happen because she knew that it was not a problem when it came to Todd. Maybe she was looking too deeply into, the scientist thought.

----(New day)

"Smiley, quit that!" Shego scolded the boy as he kept trying to stick his finger in a cake that was resting on the kitchen table.

Todd had the decency to look shocked by the admonishment, but it was more of a shock that he was caught; one would think that after being caught four times already, he would see it coming. Adding to the surprise was the fact that he was in the kitchen alone and Shego was yelling at him from the living room. She was picking up puzzle junk; Kim had been cleaning it up until Jayden started crying from upstairs.

Shego was a little worried about Kim being with Jayden because she had talked about having a special outfit for the baby. She really did not want to know what the "special" outfit was. She really had little desire for Jayden to end up looking stupid, especially since company would be coming and that company would have cameras more than likely. The last thing that she wanted was for documents showing their daughter looking like an idiot.

She did not have time to think about that because as soon as she finished cleaning, she had to yell at Todd and ordered him to answer the door as someone went psycho on the bell. She suspected that it was actually two psychos, but she still reminded Todd to ask who was there.

"Who is it?" Todd inquired as he stepped to the door.

"Police," a deep voice that sounded suspiciously like his uncle Walter.

"Police?" Todd echoed and he scratched his head. "She-she, the police are at the door," he reported.

"Tell them to kick in the door then," she replied.

"Okay. She-she says its okay for you to kick in the door," Todd informed the "police."

"Smiley, open the door, man. We have comic books for you," Wallace told the boy.

"Ohhh, comics," Todd practically whistled as he opened the door for his uncles, who did have a box of comics for the boy, which was a habit of theirs when they came to see him.

Todd took the box and ran off while the Wegos let themselves in. They shut the door behind themselves and Shego stepped out of the living room. They surprised her by hugging her and saying "Happy Thanksgiving." She was so shocked that all she could do was return the embraces.

"Take your shoes and put them on the rack. Hang your coats up in the hall closet and don't touch the cake on the counter or the pies in the fridge lest I slay you," Shego warned her brothers.

"Hmm…" the Wegos said and it was clear that they were thinking about it now. "Where's Kimmie?" they asked simultaneously.

"She tending to the baby," Shego answered. "Don't mess with my Princess, guys. I mean it."

The Wegos made faces; luckily their sister was back in the living room before they did that. They did take their shoes off and put their coats up. Instead of going to be pests, they went upstairs to hang out with Todd. He had video games in his room, so they all had something to do and his room was large enough to where they were not cramped in there at all.

A little while after the Wegos arrived, James and Ann Possible showed up. They were on their own because the twins were coming in straight from school. Shego met them at the door too, offering them the same instructions that she gave her brothers, but lacking the threat about the promises of death involving the sweets in the kitchen. The doctors asked the same question as her brothers, wanting to know where Kim was.

"She's upstairs with the baby. I'd say she's dressing Jade, but that doesn't require her being up there as long as she has been," Shego remarked.

"Oh, we'll wait for her to bring Jade down there. Here, I brought a pie," Ann said while handing the dish over.

"Can't have too much pie when your kids are around," Shego commented, noticing that the Possible twins ate more sweets than their sister.

"I know that's true," Ann replied with a laugh.

Shego went to go put the pie away while the Possibles took their shoes off and put their coats away. They went into the living room to kill sometime and wait for everyone else to arrive. It did not take long for their sons to show up. Shockingly the Possible twins were alone, even though they did have girlfriends. It would seem that they were not so serious about the girls to bring them to the family gathering, though. They eventually made their way up to Todd's room and joined in the video-game playing.

Mego showed up, loudly inquiring where his little niece was. Mego genuinely loved Jayden and it was clear from whenever he showed up because he always wanted to know where she was and he paid her all the attention that he could when she was around. So, he wanted to know where she was now.

"Stop yelling," Shego huffed as she met him at the door.

"Where's my girl? I brought her a book," Mego said with a smile and he held up the book.

"Please don't let it be about snakes," Shego begged to the ceiling. Whenever Mego asked about what he should bring the baby, Kim always spoke up first, saying anything about snakes was fine. That was annoying enough, but Mego actually listened. It irked his sister to no end, which was one of the reasons why he did it.

"It's not about snakes," Mego assured her.

"Frogs?" she inquired suspiciously.

"No."

"Lizards?"

"No."

Shego breathed a sigh of relief. Mego then showed her the book and she frowned; it was a book on salamanders. Now, why did her four-month-old baby need a book on salamanders? She knew that he did things like that just to get on her nerves, but that did not stop it from working.

Mego took it upon himself to go upstairs and see the baby. Shego did not say anything and went about her business. A little later Mego was coming downstairs with Kim behind her and Kim had Jayden in her arms. She took Jayden into the living room for the baby's grandparents to see her.

"Oh, there's little Jayden," Ann cooed and put out her hands for the baby. Kim complied with the silent order and handed the baby over. "Oh, my goodness, this is too cute!" she declared when she took note of Jayden's clothing.

"Oh, that's the Care Bear thing I brought her," Mego pointed out.

Jayden was dressed in what Kim had originally thought were pajamas until she noticed the little hood on the purple and white shirt; the white part had a purple Care Bear on it. She had the hood on Jayden's head and it had two bear ears on it. The pants were purple and had footies on it, which was one of the reasons that Kim had assumed that they were pajamas. But, the footies were designed to look like the baby had bear feet, complete with heart-shaped paw prints on the bottom.

"This is so adorable," Ann said while tugging at the left footie of Jayden's pants.

"I thought of her the second I saw them," Mego seemed to brag.

"What's Shego going to think when she sees Jade in those, though?" James pointed out, knowing that Shego preferred their children to be dressed in green and black, just like her.

"She's going to hit the ceiling, but who cares," Mego remarked while rolling his eyes. He did not care what his cranky sister was going to say about the outfit. The main point was that his little niece looked absolutely adorable in it.

"At least you know that," Kim said.

Before Shego could see what was going on with Jayden, Isabel arrived. As expected she had Jason and Hego with her. Isabel was aware that Shego and Kim liked people to take their shoes off in the house, so she instructed Jason and Hego to remove their shoes, which they complained about for the sake of complaining. They also complained about how there was no room in the hall closet to hang up their coats.

Isabel ignored them and went into the living room, knowing that would be where everyone was. Jason and Hego looked around since it was their first time at the house. They silently admitted to themselves that Shego seemed to be doing well for herself if the house was any indication of things.

"Oh, goodness, that is too cute!" they heard Isabel proclaim; she had just seen Jayden's outfit.

Jason and Hego decided to go see what was so cute, so they made their way to the living room. They spied Isabel near Ann and both women were gushing over something in the neurosurgeon's arms as far as the fellows could tell. Upon closer inspection, the father and son noticed that the "something" was a baby.

"It's about time you two saw little Jade," Mego commented. His father and older brother had never actually seen Jayden in person until now.

"Who is she?" Hego had the nerve to ask.

"What do you mean 'who is she'?" Mego inquired. He could have sworn that their mother had sent out pictures and everything to everyone celebrating the birth of her granddaughter. He knew that she sent out pictures because he had gotten a packet, even though he had been there when she was born and had seen the girl on a few occasions now.

"Is he serious?" Ann asked Isabel. She hoped that he was not serious because it would be just awful for him to not know who his own niece was.

"Of course this dumbass is serious," Shego answered, coming up behind her brother and father. "He's a dumbass, after all," the pale woman commented.

"Hey," Hego huffed.

"She's right," Mego agreed with Shego. Only a true dumbass like Hego would not know who his own niece was.

"Pumpkin, what is that the baby is wearing?" Shego inquired when she noticed the clothing on Jayden.

"Care Bear stuff," Kim answered. Shego did not mind all the Care Bear things that Kim and Mego brought for the baby; sure, it gave Jayden's room a creepy, cheerful theme, but she guessed it was all right.

"Why is it purple?" Shego asked. She was going to inquire why it had ears, but she guessed that was kind of cute. Purple was not cute, though.

"Because I brought it for her," Mego declared with a rather proud look in his eyes and a smile tugging at his lip. As long as he brought Jayden things, his sister was going to have to deal with his color and his color of choice was purple.

"Go change her," Shego said.

"Firefly, don't be so rash," Isabel commented without taking her eyes off of the baby. She thought that the clothing was extra-adorable and she believed that Shego was overreacting to it.

"Really," Ann concurred.

"Where's our mischievous little grandson?" Isabel asked Ann and James while looking around for her little "fire warrior."

"He wasn't down here when we came in," James answered.

"He's in his room with his uncles," Kim informed them.

"Oh, well, I'll just have to break that party up for a moment," Isabel declared with a smile.

Isabel walked off upstairs to go bother her sons and grandson. She burst into the room unannounced and grabbed Todd up for a tight hug at lightning speed. The boy was shocked at first, but grinned when he saw who it was.

"Grandma!" Todd shouted in a jubilant tone while his lime-colored eyes sparked with happiness. "Where's Grandpa and Mee-ma?" he asked curiously.

"They're downstairs. You rude little thing, you should've been down there to greet us as we came in like your parents and little sister were," Isabel pretended to scold the boy, going so far as to shake her finger in his face.

"Sorry, Grandma," he apologized with a pout. "I'll go greet 'em right now!" he promised enthusiastically.

Isabel put the boy down and he practically flew out of the room. She greeted her sons and the Possible twins while Todd went to go greet the other guests. The redheaded child was all right with giving out hugs all around downstairs until he came to Jason and Hego. He never was too sure what to do about them when they were in the same room, so he just stared until he felt that it was obvious they were not going to say anything and he did not feel obligated to do anything either. He then ran off to go play with his twin uncles.

Jason and Hego took seats in the large living room, turning on the television to ignore everyone else. They turned to a football game while the doctors Possible and Mego fawned over Jayden. Isabel went into the kitchen and proceeded to get on Shego's nerves. It was not done totally on purpose; she wanted to help some and she was curious as to why certain things were not already done. Shego's eye twitched from the few minutes of perceived nagging.

"Mommy, if you don't get the fuck out of here in three seconds, you're not going to be fan of what I'm going to do with this spoon," the green-skinned female commented while pointing the aforementioned spoon at her mother as if it was a weapon of some kind. The way Shego planned on using it on her mother, it would be a weapon.

"Look, firefly—" Isabel tried to say, but Shego was not looking to hear anything.

"I'm serious, Mommy. Get the fuck out of my kitchen and let me do this," the younger female stated soundly, her face tight from her seriousness.

Isabel did not argue. She reminded herself that it was her daughter's first time hosting Thanksgiving and obviously Shego wanted everything to go smoothly by her own hands. So, Isabel left quietly and went to fuss over Jayden for a while.

--------------

Betty and Dahntay arrived when everyone was settled in. They joined everyone in the living room along with Mayah. Isabel quickly grabbed up the little girl to get a good look at her. She could see already that Mayah was going to grow up and be a clone of Betty because she looked just like Betty did when she was a baby, except for the very curious eyes the child possessed. Isabel thought that Mayah's mismatched eyes were utterly charming, though, which she had actually said and most people thought that was an odd word to using when describing a toddler's eyes.

While Mayah was being taken care of by Isabel, Betty popped into the kitchen to check on Shego. The raven-haired female was sitting at the table in the kitchen, taking a breather. Betty smiled a bit and even laughed.

"Harder than it looks, throwing a whole Thanksgiving dinner on your own, huh?" Betty commented.

"It's not that hard," Shego lied. She should have let Kim help more, she mentally commented. Well, live and learn.

"The look on your face tells a different story," the older woman pointed out while sitting down across from Shego.

"You didn't bring anything, did you?"

"No. I was going to, but I figured you'd be pissed enough, so I wouldn't have to add to it," Betty explained.

"You were right. You know, Hego is such a fucking dumbass, he didn't even know who Jayden was," the pale woman reported.

The one-eyed female nodded slightly for lack of a better thing to do. "That's okay. My brother wouldn't know Mayah if I was holding her and she was wearing a name tag."

"Well, he's a dumbass too," Shego commented.

"That he is," Betty agreed, nodding again and looking slightly amused.

The friends sat there for a while until Shego went to check on the food. By the time the food was done, Shego was sort of stuck. Should she leave the food in the kitchen or should she set it out? In her family, the food was always left in the kitchen and whenever folks were hungry, they would just go in there, fix a plate, and then go about their business. In the Possible family, everyone sat down at the table. Well, it was her house and she was done in for the moment anyway.

So, Shego did what she usually would do in a family gathering where food was involved. She went upstairs and told Todd that the food was done and all he had to do was tell her when he was hungry, so she could fix him a plate. He nodded because he knew the drill and he was too busy kicking his uncles' butts in a multiplayer racing game. She left him alone and then went back downstairs. She fixed herself a plate and Kim a plate, carrying those to living room.

"Food's done," Shego told everyone while putting her food and Kim's food down just long enough for her to grab a tray that was leaning on the wall.

"What kind of host are you?" Betty teased.

"Hey, I could've just kept it a secret," the green-skinned woman pointed out.

No one argued that because it was true. Instead, they all got up to go see what Shego had slaved over for the past two days. The turkey was on the countertop, sliced and everything. There was cranberry sauce next to it and biscuits next to that. On the stove, there was a pot full of rice and beans. Next to that pot was mashed potatoes and on the backburners, there was a pot of string beans, which Kim had helped in making. The last dish on the stove was sort of a surprise; it was baked fish, which was a favorite of Mego's. He often ate fish on Thanksgiving because he disliked turkey.

The other food was on the table in the kitchen, which included macaroni salad, macaroni and cheese, tossed salad, and corn on the cob. There was a cake on the table too, which appeared to be homemade like everything else. It was an impressive spread, especially since it was mostly done by one person, and they knew that she probably had desserts stashed away somewhere.

"That girl is too much," Isabel commented under her breath with a proud smile on her face.

--------------

Next time: the end of Thanksgiving and some firsts for Jayden.


	20. Reason Twenty: Firsts

I don't own these characters and I don't own the original premise that this saga is based on. I also don't own the Care Bears.

Reason Twenty: Firsts

_Between having Smiley's first birthday party here and now having the first Thanksgiving in the house, we have a lot of firsts to look forward to._

Thanksgiving at Kim and Shego's house went over well, even though Shego was worn out by the endeavor. Todd did have to put up with being bugged by Mayah once he ventured out his room. She even tried to follow him up the stairs when he was going back to his room to continue to whip up on his uncles in some racing games, but her mother stopped her.

"I'm wondering if I should be worried with the way Mayah is attached to Smiley. It could be a sign of mental instability," Betty joked with a playful smile on her face while she went to let her daughter loose in the living room.

"Hardy, har, har," Shego remarked sarcastically. She did think that it was a little weird that Mayah liked being around Todd, who seemed to find the baby cute for a few minutes and then annoying for the rest of their time together. But, since no one was being hurt or anything like that, she left Mayah to bug Todd. Sometimes, it was funny to see him freak out over the baby following him anyway.

Betty put Mayah down and she went to go bother Jayden, who was having a good time following Isabel's finger with her eyes. Mayah went along with that for a moment, not seeing the joy in the frivolous game. So, she hit Jayden, which shocked the baby's grandparents.

"Calm down, folks. That's how they get along," Shego said in a dismissive tone because she knew that her friend was on the case.

Betty took care of Mayah, scolding her for hitting the baby. Mayah appeared lost as if she could not understand why she was being admonished, like she thought that she was supposed to slap Jayden every chance she got. In fact, when Betty put the one-year-old down, she went back over to Jayden and hit her again.

"Jayden is going to grow up to kick Mayah's ass," Shego predicted. There was no way that her daughter was just going to allow someone to pick on her for the rest of her life after all.

"No way in hell my baby girl gets her ass kicked by someone younger than she is," Betty declared.

"Bets, I'm three years younger than you and I kicked your ass every chance I got," the green-skinned woman commented.

Betty just waved her off and turned her attention back to Mayah to make sure she did not hurt Jayden. Mayah continued tapping the baby, but she did not do it with any amount of force to do any harm. Jayden continued followed her grandmother's finger with an intense expression on her; it was almost as if she did not notice that she was being hit.

"Hey, Dad, don't you want to hold your granddaughter?" Mego asked curiously since it just registered to his brain that Jason had hardly looked in Jayden's direction. He could not understand why his father would not pay Jayden any mind. After all, she was such a little doll that he thought everyone should pay attention to her.

"Shego didn't have that baby," Jason pointed out the obvious.

"So?" Mego inquired, not following. No, Shego did not have the baby. But then again, Jason had not had any of his kids either, but they were still his kids. He figured that the fact that Shego claimed Jayden as her own was enough for the rest of them to treat Jayden was hers. Besides, he loved having a niece and would never try to think of a reason not to look at Jayden as his kin and he felt like everyone should feel the same way.

"So, I…" Jason started to explain himself, but then he noticed not only his wife, but his daughter, giving him the exact same look, as if daring him to finish that sentence. He knew that in doing so, he would be signing his own death warrant. He made the wise decision of shutting up completely.

"You should hold, Jade. She's a cute kid," Mego commented while grabbing his little niece and tickling her a bit. His actions earned him a toothless grin from her.

A disaster was evidently avoided by Jason not saying anything and things went on without anyone having to be killed. Everyone also left at a decent hour, although not at the same time. Kim offered people food as they left, making sure that Mego took any fish that was left over since it was made especially for him. Both sets of twins were encouraged to take as much food as they could carry since the little family of four would not be able to eat everything that was prepared. The twins did not need much encouraging to say the least and left with as much as they could carry.

By the time everyone was cleared out, Shego was asleep on the sofa, clearly exhausted. She had a good grip on Jayden, who was resting on her chest. Kim smiled at the sight; it was always going to be sweet in her opinion. She went to the kitchen to see the damage and then she began cleaning up.

The redheaded hero put the food away and did the dishes. She then went upstairs and told Todd to get ready for bed, meaning he had to take a bath, get in his pajamas, brush his teeth, and get in the bed, in that order and without any detours. He had to be told no detours or he would end up not just in the wrong room, but on the wrong floor. A few times, he somehow ended up in the basement when he was supposed to be in the bathroom; he would be down there on the heavy bag, boxing with it as his She-she taught him to. He followed instructions that night, though.

Kim then carefully took Jayden from Shego. She bathed the baby and then put her down to sleep. Jayden's crib had been moved into their bedroom because she would sleep soundly as long as she was in the room; in her own room, all bets were off. Once everything was done, Kim went to wake up Shego.

"Come on, sweetheart, let's go to bed," Kim whispered. She wished that she was a little bigger than what she was because she would have carried Shego up to the bed, but she had tried that once and failed miserably at a time when she was in much better shape. The only way for her to carry Shego was on her back and she would not try that at the moment since climbing stairs were involved.

"Hmm?" the green-skinned woman made the noise without opening her eyes. She snuggled into the arm cushion.

"Come on, love," Kim repeated while nudging her spouse again.

"Princess?" Shego asked, her tone dazed and slightly confused.

"Yeah, let's go to bed, love."

"The kitchen…" the pale woman said, implying that she needed to get to the mess in the kitchen.

"I cleaned it," Kim informed her wife.

"Smiley…?"

"Is in the bed."

"Jade?" And then Shego realized with a start that she had been holding the baby, but the small amount of weight was not there anymore. She sat up and frantically looked around, fearing that she had dropped their child.

"I put her to bed, honey," Kim stated with a small smile on her face while grabbing Shego by the shoulders to get her to stop bugging out.

"Oh." Shego breathed a sigh of relief.

"Let's go to bed."

Shego nodded and Kim helped her off of the sofa. They checked the doors to make sure that they were locked and then went up to the bed. They changed into their pajamas and curled up in bed. Right before she was about to fall asleep, Shego thought to say something rather kind.

"Thank you," Shego said. She was thanking Kim for doing all of the clean up and making sure the kids were asleep.

"Don't thank me. I'm here to help, but thank you for making this a great Thanksgiving," Kim replied with a bright smile.

"No need to thank me either," the super-powered woman replied and then she closed her eyes to go to sleep.

Kim followed suit, going to sleep with thoughts of such a wonderful Thanksgiving. She thought that it was a fantastic first Thanksgiving at their home. She wondered if they were going to do it again next year. She hoped so.

----(New day)

Kim was sitting in the living room with Jayden and reading a book for one of her classes. Yes, she still took classes at school. There always seemed to be more to learn for her, so she was constantly studying more things, hoping to find something new to work on while staying with cold-blooded creatures. Most of the things that she studied now helped out with her examining the toxins and venoms of the animals that she had become an expert in. She was also going for another doctorate, in chemistry now.

Jayden was busy trying to figure out the secret to crawling. The baby could easily get up on all fours and start moving, but the problem was that she moved backwards. She seemed to know that was not the way to go since Raziya crawled forward; Bokuden had finally mastered walking without hitting everything in sight. Shego still thought that there was something wrong with that boy, though.

So, Jayden was in the "ready" position. She rocked back and forth for a moment, as if she needed to do a warm-up first. Kim glanced up from her book in case she was needed, even though she doubted that anything was going to go wrong. Jayden took a deep breath and started moving, backwards as she always did.

The baby stopped when she noticed that Kim was getting further away instead of closer. Jayden looked down at her legs and then over to her mother. Her little brows furrowed together and she seemed to concentrate on her mother. Kim laughed a bit; Jayden sure was a cute little thing, especially when she was all serious about something.

The child rocked back and forth again. Their little girl was determined if nothing else, Kim thought. Jayden started going again, but she was going in the wrong direction again. She stopped, recognizing once again that she was not going the right way. She eyed her mother again as if she was asking herself why she could not make it to that woman. She stayed like that for a long time, as if she was seriously contemplating things.

Kim watched the baby from behind her book. She thought it was funny how serious Jayden seemed about things, not just crawling but plenty of things. When they read to her, she looked so intense until she fell asleep, which was inevitable when someone was reading to her. If someone was doing something when she was around, Jayden wanted to look at it and she did so as if she was studying it. Shego thought that she got that from Kim.

Jayden inspected her limbs, looking back at her legs on both sides and then down at her arms on both sides. They seemed to pass inspection and she turned her attention back to her target, Kim. The baby took a deep breath and started out again, moving backwards. She ceased quickly and having failed miserably three times, she went to her answer for everything. She started bawling.

"What's wrong with the baby?" Shego inquired as she rushed to the entrance of the living room, her hands wet from washing the dishes.

"Nothing. Jade's just mad because she can't crawl forward," Kim explained.

"And she's being a little crybaby over that? Jade, quit that noise," Shego ordered.

Jayden turned her attention to Shego while making sure not to stop weeping. She put her hands out, wanting to be picked up. Shego did not comply.

"You know better than that, Jade. I'm not picking you up just because you want me to," Shego said soundly, turning her head away from the weeping baby.

Jayden did not seem to accept that. She kept crying and kept her hands out for Shego. The green-skinned woman still refused to pick the baby up. Usually, she did not mind an excuse to snatch Jayden up and soothe the baby, but she was not looking to encourage Jayden to just cry whenever things did not go her way and then to beg to be picked up.

"Stop that noise," Shego commanded soundly.

Jayden guessed that she was not going to get sympathy of that mother, so she turned to her other mother. She put her hands out in Kim's direction and kept bawling, obviously now wanting Kim to pick her up. The redhead did feel sorry for the baby and her failing, so she put her book down. Shego knew what Kim was about to do.

"Princess, you leave the mini-monster alone. Don't pick her up," Shego stated in a firm tone.

"But, she's so upset," Kim objected.

"I don't care. Crying shouldn't get you everything and you should know that by now," the pale woman remarked.

The scientist pouted, but she did not say anything. She turned back to the baby, who was still weeping. Kim put her hands out, as if she was saying if Jayden could make it to her, she would gladly cuddle the baby. Jayden just cried harder and Shego walked off to go finish what she was doing.

"Oh, my god," Kim muttered in disbelief and awe. "Shego!" she screamed.

"What?" Shego huffed.

"Come here! Quick!"

Shego took her time coming back, thinking that Kim was just being a pest. She got back to the living room to see the last bit of why Kim was calling her; Jayden had crawled forward. The baby made it to Kim and Kim wasted no time snatching their child up for a proud hug.

"Did you see that?" Kim inquired in an excited voice, speaking to Shego.

The emerald-eyed woman was trying to contain her joy, but a small smile did sneak out. "Yeah, I saw," she confirmed.

"That was so great!" Kim declared and then she looked at the baby, who was grinning, as if she knew she had just done something remarkable. "You are such a wonderful, little mini-monster!" Kim proclaimed; from the look on her face, an outsider might have thought that she cured cancer because of the pride she was displaying. She kissed the baby's cheek.

"That was great, baby," Shego concurred as she walked over and rubbed Jayden's back.

Jayden continued to smile. It would seem that more than crawling forward, she liked her mothers' attention. The praise and proud smiles seemed to be quite enough for her and she smiled all the way through it.

----(New day)

Todd was sitting on the sofa with a bowl of cereal and he was watching cartoons. A little bit in front of him was Jayden. She was sitting on her Care Bear blanket and chewing on a Care Bear teething ring; yes, she was teething, but none of her teeth had come in yet. He had volunteered to keep an eye on the baby for a little while, giving their parents a much needed and deserved break. So, the kids were on their own, at least for a few minutes.

Shego had planned to put Jayden in her playpen while she was with Todd. It was just to lessen the strain on him; he was only eight, after all. But, he protested. He really disliked seeing Jayden in the playpen, especially since she seemed to utterly despise being in the thing. Whenever she was in the playpen, she would look out and put her hands up whenever someone came near, as if she was pleading with them to spring her from the prison that she was in. He was willing to watch her while she was able to roam free.

Jayden was not even doing much moving. She was intent on chewing through that teething ring it seemed. Lately, all Jayden wanted to do was chew things, which made her a bit of a pain. Her parents thought that it was a good thing that she could not walk or she would just be chewing on everything that was at her level.

Jayden could not walk and did not seem interested in doing so any time soon. Outside of chewing things, the next thing that the baby enjoyed doing was standing up and _not_ walking. She would put her hands out for someone near by, silently requesting that the person pick her up. For Jayden, being carried seemed like it was the only way to travel.

Todd did like teasing Jayden, faking like he was going to pick her up and just grabbing her arms to hold her up. It was his way of encouraging her to walk, but she seriously was not interested in doing that. She would just stare her brother, who was usually grinning widely while teasing her. The baby seemed to call her brother a moron with her gaze whenever he tried to get her to walk. A lot of the time, Shego envisioned Jayden going, "You dumb ass, just pick me up and stop being so fucking goofy," when it came to the eight-year-old boy.

Jayden looked up at her brother and noticed the food. She held her teething ring in one hand and pointed with her other. Todd knew that she was pointing at the cereal. He stuck his tongue out at her, taunting her because they both knew that she could not have anything that he ate. Jayden did not like that and tossed her teething ring at him. He was willing to bet that she was trying to hit him in the head, but she luckily had no aim or arm. The ring hit against the bottom of the sofa and he quickly reached down to grab it.

"Oh, it's mine now," Todd teased her, waving her teething ring at her.

The baby took exception to that, or so the angry look in her eye implied. He gulped a bit; the expression on his sister's face reminded him of his She-she. Jayden puffed out her cheeks in anger and put her hand out, silently demanding her toy back. He stuck his tongue out at her, teasing her even more. She narrowed her gaze at him, which caused him to gulp again, but he did not surrender her teething ring.

Jayden made a noise like "yo" as if it was an order to give her back her toy or else; she could not talk, but she had several noises that got her points across. Todd made a face at the baby, which only seemed to infuriate her further. Her eyebrows came close together and she puffed out her cheeks again. She put her hand out again, harsher than before.

"That's not going to get you this thing back," Todd informed her, making another face at her and leaning down as if daring her to do something.

Jayden frowned; it would seem that her big brother was asking for it. She stood up, which did not bother him. She stood up all the time; it was nothing special anymore. He stuck his tongue out at her and blew a raspberry at her. Jayden was angry now and it was clear on her face.

"Whaddaya making that face for? It's not gonna get you the toy back," he teased, waving the teething ring in her direction.

Jayden then did something that made Todd's face fall; she took a step. She took a step without holding on to anything. His mouth dropped open. His brain was ordering him to call their parents for them to see, but he could not remember how to talk. She took another step and then moved like she was going to take another one, but she fell back. He was still speechless while Jayden was pushing herself back up to her feet.

"Holy crap," Todd muttered and then he got up from his seat on the couch. He put his breakfast down and grabbed Jayden, who began reaching for her toy. He rushed upstairs and burst into their parents' room. "Kimmie! She-she! Jade walked!" he reported in a hyped up tone.

Shego and Kim were laid out on the bed, trying to take a nap. They were startled by Todd bursting in and they sat up with panicked looks on their faces; Shego even put a hand up as if she was expecting a fight. Between the baby, running around with Todd, and working fulltime, life was catching up with them and they really just wanted eight straight hours of sleep. There was really no way in all the world that they were ever going to get that eight hours though, and they knew that.

"Huh?" the parents said in dazed tones while trying to will their eyes to stay open in order to pay Todd the attention that he seemed to want at the moment.

"Jade walked!" Todd repeated.

"She did?" they asked, now mostly awake because of the information that they were getting. They could not believe that lazy Jayden actually walked somewhere.

"Yeah! She took two steps! Let's see if she'll do it again," Todd said while putting the baby down. Jayden did not move; she still wanted her teething ring back. "C'mon, Jade. C'mon. Walk again. Walk for your mommies. C'mon," he urged little girl.

Jayden looked at her brother like he was extra-stupid. She put her hand out, which confused him. He forgot that he had her teething ring. He continued to urge her to walk for their parents, who were watching and hoping that she would, but Jayden was still just looking like her brother was an idiot. Jayden made her demanding noise again that sounded like "yo."

"Smiles," Shego said, realizing one of the reasons why Jayden probably was not going to move.

"Yeah, She-she?" Todd replied.

"You got her ring. Give her that and then maybe she'll do something," the pale woman suggested.

"Oh," Todd smiled sheepishly. "I forgot I had this thing."

He handed the teething ring back to the baby, who cheered and grinned as if she had accomplished something truly great. Jayden shoved the ring in her mouth like it was made of the juiciest meat that ever existed. With her toy back where it belonged, Jayden sat down for a moment; apparently, those two steps from earlier had taken a lot out of her.

"No! Jade, you're not supposed to sit down! You should walk over to She-she and Kimmie! Look, go to them!" Todd pled while pointing to their parents, who were still sitting up in bed and watching the siblings.

Jayden looked back between her brother and their parents, but she did not move. She continued chewing on her teething ring; evidently, she was not going to be anyone's show, even if they were her parents. Todd groaned and dramatically fell to the floor; his sister sure was stubborn. Shego and Kim figured that Jayden was not going anywhere, so they thought that it was safe to lie back down.

Kim eased down first and Shego soon followed. Right before Shego hit the pillow, she noticed movement at the edge of the bed. At first, she thought that it was Todd playing around and she was going to ignore it, but then she saw that Todd was still lying on the floor. What was that movement then? She peered over the edge of the bed and saw that Jayden had stood up and was holding onto the bedspread.

"Princess," Shego said in a low voice, shaking Kim just a bit since it looked like she had fallen back to sleep.

"What?" Kim asked curiously.

"Look at our mini-monster. She might actually be about to do it," the green-skinned woman replied in a low voice. She did not want to talk too loudly to avoid startling the baby.

The olive-eyed hero sat up slightly to peer at their baby. Todd noticed what was going on too and remained silent as Jayden just stood there for a moment, chewing on her toy and holding the bedspread. She then suddenly dropped her teething ring and turned her attention to the bed. She leaned forward and started biting a handful of the covers. Shego leaned forward, as if she was going to stop Jayden from doing that, but Kim held her back.

"Wait, let's just see what she does," Kim whispered.

"But, I hate when she bites on everything like that," Shego objected in a whispered tone too.

"I know, but let's give her a moment."

Shego sighed, but she silently agreed to that. They all watched Jayden, who seemed rather unaware of the eyes that were on her. She made a noise while pulling the cover out of her mouth; the noise sounded like "ah." She then started moving along side the bed, calling out "ah" all the way around. Everyone was speechless to what they were seeing; Jayden was walking.

Jayden made it all the way around the bed to Kim's side. She called out "ah" again and the next thing she knew, she was being snatched up by her redheaded mother. Kim was grinning madly and she hugged the baby tightly. Shego joined in while Jayden proudly yelled another "ah!"

"I told you she walked!" Todd shouted in an awed tone as he bum-rushed the bed to join his family in praising the baby. He picked up her teething ring along the way and gave it back to her.

"Gah!" Jayden declared proudly, holding her teething ring up in the air as if it was a trophy. She then shoved the toy back to where she felt it belonged, namely in her mouth.

----(New day)

Shego thought that she, Kim, and the rest of the nutty lot that they hung out with were out of their minds and she thought that because of what they did for their babies first birthdays. They threw actually parties for the babies, even though they were just babies and they did not even have any friends really yet. It started with Betty of course since Mayah was the eldest of them all.

Mayah's first birthday had been a weird thing because Mayah was the eldest. She seemed to enjoy the party because it gave her a chance to be around Todd the whole day, no matter how much he tried to run away. Bokuden had only been six months old and could not do much. Hell, Raziya was only a month old and Jayden had not even been born yet. But, there was still a party with the silly hats, a cake, and even a piñata. Ron had been all over that piñata, but somehow Kim had gotten most of the candy. Kim had not been able to reap the rewards because Ron squealed on her, telling Shego that she had all kinds of sweets, which were out of her diet as far as her spouse was concerned while she was carrying their baby. Ron emerged the victor of that battle, although Kim called foul whenever it was brought up.

Bokuden's first birthday was just as strange. Mayah helped him open his gifts because he did not seem too interested in tearing things open. He actually just watched her open his gifts and since he did not raise a funk about it, his parents did not either. Mayah was not interested in the gifts after she ripped the paper off of them, but Bokuden at least showed some intrigue with the few toys he got; most of the gifts had been clothing for him. Once again, everyone had been subjected to party hats, which Raziya did not like much and snatched hers off every time someone dared place it on her head. Bokuden had not seemed too interested in the party until the cake was brought out. All he wanted was to put his hand in the cake when it was presented to him and Ron ended up blowing out the candle while Yori held the blonde child at bay.

Raziya's first birthday had not been much better, especially since all of the babies could walk by then. Mayah was the easiest one to keep track of since they knew that she would be chasing Todd. Jayden was also easy to keep track of because she still did not like walking, even though Shego tried to encourage her to do so by not picking her up when she whined about it. It was just really hard to ignore such a pathetic look, which Shego was certain Jayden got from Kim, from someone that was so tiny, so Shego ended up caving and picking Jayden up a lot; Kim did not even bother to resist and just took the baby in her arms whenever she came around.

Bokuden just followed food while at Raziya's party because there were plenty of finger foods. Felix tried to get the kids to play musical chairs; no one knew why he thought that would work. They all put the kids next to the row of chairs and started the music. The kids did not move until Mayah turned to Bokuden and slapped him. He slapped her back. Jayden wandered off over to her brother, who picked her up and she revealed a new trick of hers; she head-butted him. Raziya took it upon herself to knock over all of the chairs and made sure to look rather proud about that.

One would think that by Jayden's first birthday, they would have had their acts together. They had already been through four birthdays; Mayah turned two a month before Jayden turned one and there had been a party for her. But, once again, they tried to set things up like it was a real party, instead of a party that was going to be attended by toddlers with no attention span or desire to do what anyone wanted them to do.

Between the way the little kids continuous ripped up their party hats and ran off when games were introduced, the parents all finally gave up halfway through Jayden's party. They all put their kids down in the backyard and just told them to do whatever they wanted to. All of the kids were to play in the dirt. Their parents did not even bother to stop them.

"Do you think they'll always be that out of control?" Monique asked.

"Nah, surely they'll grow out of it," Kim replied with an optimistic smile.

"They better," Betty stated and there were a round of nods in agreement.

--------------

Next time: Betty has news while Jayden gets sick for the first time. What's a mother to do?


	21. Reason Twentyone: Flurries

I don't own these characters and I don't own the original premise that this saga is based on.

Reason Twenty-one: Flurries

_Why is everyone, mostly Jade, so full of surprises?_

A little while after Jayden's first birthday, Betty informed Shego that she was pregnant again. Shego just wanted to bang her head against the nearest wall because she knew what that meant. When Betty went on maternity leave again, she was going to be left in charge. Oh, that was going to be awful, Shego thought. At least it would not happen until the following year as far as she knew; Betty was supposed to be having the baby some time in January.

----(New day)

Kim looked at Shego with a smirk that told the pale woman exactly what was on her mind. The kids had been put to bed. The crazy brats' messes had been cleaned. Everything was done for the night. The couple was in the bed and neither of them were tired in the least, which was new considering their lifestyles and having to chase the Tasmanian devil they called a son around. They did not have to chase Jayden for the simple fact that she still picked her spots where she was going to walk on her own, especially if the other rugrats were not around.

The couple did not even speak to each other; the looks in their eyes said everything that they needed to and they did not want to waste any time with words anyway. They went at each other, meeting at the mouth, while their hands went into for flesh to fondle. They made things easy on each other by having on loose camisoles and those were lost quickly, although they were not disregarded far away. There was a practical reason to that.

The couple kept their door cracked open now. It was for Jayden because she slept in a little bed now; it turned out that once they gave her a bed, she was fine with sleeping in her own room. The bed had a little guardrail to keep her from falling out if she moved in her sleep, but the lazy little monster could climb over it and would when she wanted to get up in the middle of the night. When her room door used to be shut, she would sit on her floor and scream to high heavens until someone acknowledged her plight. To avoid that, her door was left open and she would walk to her mothers' room and had nothing to cry about when finding the door open, but God help them all if that door was shut. Once she would be in the room, she would stand at the foot of the bed and make small noises until someone picked her up and put her in the bed with them. They typically heard her a few seconds after she entered the room, so she never had to wait long for them to pick her up.

Sometimes, Todd would come to the room too, but he would knock, even though the door was open. The problem was that he would knock hard and push the door open wider. Once the door was open wide enough for him to step in, he just did so. He luckily had not been scarred for life yet by walking into a scene that no child wanted or needed to see.

Heated, passionate moaning filled the room as things steamed up. The sudden line of light from the hall failed to grab their attention as they were focused solely on each other for the first time in too long a time in their opinions. The light came from the hallway, which was always on at night to make sure Jayden did not wander too close to the stairs; if she could see the stairs, she damn sure did not go near them without someone at least four-feet-tall holding her hand and even then she preferred that she was carried down the stairs.

Just as Shego started groaning the name "Kimmie," she noticed kind of a foreign sound in the room. It was "kind of" foreign because they knew what it was, but it should not have been in the room at the moment. The noise was sort of an "uhhnnnn" sound. Jayden's code for "I'm in the room now, damn it, so pay attention to me." She refused to speak real words yet; just another sign of her laziness in everyone's opinions.

"Princess," Shego said while pulling away from her wife's hungry lips.

"Huh?" Kim said.

"You know you hear that," the pale woman replied.

"Jade, you ruined Mommy's chance to get laid," Kim complained as she and Shego reached for their tops. The pale woman tried not to laugh about that comment, although she was of like mind on it too.

The redhead got out of the bed while putting her camisole back on and she picked the baby up. She took Jayden over to the bed and laid her down. Jayden did not seem to be in agreement with that, though. She sat back up with her mothers.

Shego decided to play with the baby just a little bit, even though Jayden really just needed to go to sleep. Shego gently pushed the child over and Jayden laughed as she fell back. Jayden was a big fan of being pushed over, which was something that Mayah would have enjoyed if not for the fact that when she pushed Jayden, the olive-eyed child would stand back up and head-butt her in retaliation. The baby quickly sat back up, just for Shego to push her back down again. Jayden giggled like mad and got up for the same action to happen again. After about ten times, Shego was bored with the insane game.

"Okay, Jade, time to sleep," the super-powered woman declared and she went to lay the child down, but Jayden grabbed her hand and tried to make her push her again. Shego shook her head; what was she supposed to do with such a nutty child that always wanted to play such crazy games?

"You just had to start her up, didn't you?" Kim pointed out, teasing just a bit.

"Don't get smart," the green-skinned female stated.

"Kind of hard for me not to when you always yell at me for playing with her before bed," the redhead countered.

Shego rolled her eyes, even though she did often bark at Kim about playing with Jayden close to the baby's bedtime. She did not like getting Jayden worked up before bed because the little girl would just keep going. The energy thing had to come from Kim, she figured. What was with Kim just making their kids vigorous little gremlins?

"Come on, mini-monster, time for bed," Shego said, trying her best to gently put Jayden down, but the child was still trying to get her to push her again.

Jayden seemed to realize that her mother was not playing with her anymore and she made a face that showed she was definitely Kim's daughter; she pouted. She gave Shego a look that made her want to give Jayden one more playful shove to let the girl laugh again. But, she reminded herself that Jayden needed to go to bed. She was only a little baby, after all. Jayden could see that she was losing the little piece of sympathy that she had and shocked her parents for the second time that night.

"Mah-mee," Jayden forced the syllables out of her mouth, passed her six teeth.

"Did she just…?" Shego inquired with a stunned expression plastered on her face. Was she hearing right? She could not believe it if she was.

"She did," Kim replied with the same expression on her face. She knew that she was hearing right and she still could not believe it.

Jayden did not seem to realize that she had just done something that her parents felt was extraordinary. She just knew that she had gotten her mommy to stop trying to lay her down. She then proceeded to move Shego's hand in a motion that showed she wanted another push. Shego was way too shocked to notice.

"She just said 'mommy,' didn't she?" Shego asked, even though she had already gotten confirmation. She wanted to be sure since she had not finished the question before. There was the slim chance that Kim thought she was going to ask something different.

"Yeah," the redhead answered, nodding now.

"She spoke. Jade spoke."

"I gotta call my parents!" Kim declared in a loud voice while shooting up from the bed to make it to a communication device; it did not matter which one. She just needed something to call her parents and inform them that Jayden had just said her first word and she had done it rather clearly.

Shego also scrambled for a phone, looking to call her mother. While they both looked for communication devices, Jayden watched her mothers like they were insane. She wanted to know why no one was playing with her. Maybe she should not use that word anymore if it was going to get her parents all worked up and not paying her any mind.

"Hey, what's the noise all about?" Todd inquired, standing at the doorway with one eye closed. He still carried his stuff saber-tooth, Tai, with him, even though he was trying to grow up.

"Jade said her first word!" Kim told him with a huge grin on her face as she finally got into contact with her parents; she was using the house phone.

"What'd she say?" he asked curiously.

"She said 'mommy'!" the hero reported, telling him and her parents.

"Say 'mommy' again, monster," Shego urged the baby while putting the phone to Jayden's head. "Say 'mommy' so Grandma can hear you," the pale woman said in a rather excited tone. If she was not so happy, she would have been considering how amused her mother had to be with her behavior.

Jayden laughed, amused by her mothers' behavior undoubtedly. Todd thought it was funny too, especially since the baby was laughing at their parents. Shego pled with Jayden to speak again and Kim started doing the same, putting the house phone to the child's unoccupied ear. On the other end, three of her grandparents were also encouraging her to speak. Jayden was just cracking up; everybody sure was acting weird.

Todd decided to join in because he would like to hear his little sister speak. Jayden grinned when her big brother came over and he got in her face, trying to goat her into saying "mommy" again. As soon as Todd was on her level though, Jayden did not even consider speaking. She did reared back and she head-butted her big brother in the center of his forehead. Todd coughed as the blow landed and fell back in a dramatic fashion. Jayden laughed and pointed at her brother, the idiot.

"Jade, if you weren't one, I'd kick your butt," Todd muttered. Jayden's favorite thing lately seemed to be head-butting, especially him. He did not like the attraction, especially since she was hardheaded, literally.

"Jade, why are you being so difficult? Just say it again," Kim pled. Only Shego's daughter could be so stubborn, she thought.

"I don't think she's going to say it," Todd commented as he sat back up, making sure to keep his higher than Jayden's monster dome.

"No, really? Is that your professional opinion, Doctor Smiley?" Shego remarked with a teasing smile.

"Yeah," he replied with a goofy grin of his own.

Shego rolled her eyes and they continued to try to get Jayden to talk, but she was not interested in say anything again. She was having fun getting to stay up late and watch her parents and brother act weird, not to mention her grandparents were ranting on the phone as far as she was concerned. After nearly a half-hour of such antics, they all did give up. It would seem that Jayden was just going to back to being lazy, no talking and walking to a minimum.

The baby yawned as soon as the phones were taken away from her. She crawled up to the pillows and settled onto her favorite one, which also happened to be Shego's pillow. Her parents and brother watched in disbelief.

"Guess it's bedtime," Kim commented with a laugh as the baby closed her eyes and was sleeping in no time at all.

"At least she went to bed on her own," Shego said with a sigh. Often Jayden just liked to stay up with everyone, even if she was obviously sleepy. It was just about the only non-lazy thing that Jayden did.

Kim nodded and they lay down to go to sleep too. Todd joined them since he was there. They all settled down for sleep, silently hoping that Jayden would shock them again and speak. Maybe she would even say "mah-mee" again.

----(New day)

Kim and Shego were knocked out. Sleep had come easy for the simple fact that they had both had busy days with work and with their kids; Todd was over for a long weekend because his birth parents had just decided to take a vacation and not think about how he had school. Between saving the city/world (depending on the spouse) and running around with their kids, they figured that the saving business was a lot easier, especially when Todd got an idea in his head.

It started snowing early that year, before winter even showed up actually. It was a couple of inches worth of snow when it was all said and done. Todd wanted to go out in the snow and playing with his friends in the neighborhood was not enough. He had to drag them out with him. They did not take the baby with them the first time it snowed, but it happened more than once and they figured that everything should be all right taking her out for a few minutes.

Jayden seemed to get a kick out of being in the snow, even though she could not move around too much while she was out there. Kim bundled her up in so many clothes that Todd joked they were going to have to roll the baby outside. He also got a huge kick out of watching Jayden waddle around in all of her winter gear; he said she looked like a baby penguin.

Jayden did have trouble moving when she was in her snowsuit, but she generally tried to stay in the same place. She leaned down, always with extra-care, because she knew that if she fell over, laughing would come long before help up did. She especially hated the laughter and that was always clear from her expression. No baby should ever look so irked just because people were laughing at her.

The little child did like trying to throw snowballs like Todd, but she could not pack snow together. She was a funny kid, according to Shego anyway. Jayden always looked so focused when she was trying to understand something and she had her signature look of intense concentration while she tried figure out why her brother could throw snowballs, but she could not do the same. She stared at the snow and she tried several times to do as she saw Todd do, but it was not capable of replicating his actions. Sometimes Shego could swear that baby was screaming "damn him!" in her head.

So, the couple was worn out and thankful for the bed from the early snow days. They had practically collapsed on it and each other. Shego was laying spread out in the bed. Kim was draped halfway on her, using Shego's shoulder as a pillow and drooling on the top of her breast because the sleep was really good. Shego had her arm wrapped around Kim to keep her in place because she was most comfortable when the redhead was on her. Shego's mouth was open and she seemed to be eternally inhaling. They were the very definition on knocked out.

The door was shoved open, but they failed to notice. Jayden made her way to her special spot in the room and she started making noises. It was not working as well as it usually did. Her mothers were not stirring, which bothered her, a lot. She started in louder, but she did not get a reaction. Now, she was distressed.

She marched over to the bed, going to Shego's side. She was not tall enough to do much, but she did bang on the side of the bed and she tugged on the covers, hoping, wanting, demanding some attention. She began crying too.

"Mah-mee, mah-mee, mah-mee," she practically chanted while slamming on the bed and weeping.

"Ah, Jade, cut Mommy a break," Shego pled with the baby.

"Mah-mee!" Jayden cried while putting her hands up since she now had a parent that was wake.

"Jade, why do you do this to me?" the pale woman inquired while shifting to pick up her mini-monster, but trying her best to not wake up her mega-monster.

Jayden practically jumped into her mommy's arms. She also clung to Shego once she was secure in her arms and she kept crying. Shego rocked her gently and rubbed her back, which usually calmed her down. It was not working at the moment.

"Oh, god. Come on, Jade. Be a good baby and go to sleep for Mommy," Shego implored the child, who continued wailing.

Shego kept up her actions while glancing at Kim, who was still sleeping through the noise. For the moment, Shego officially hated her wife. She bounced the baby more and begged Jayden to stop crying, which did not work. Shego stopped what she was doing and looked at the child.

"Jade, baby, what is wrong with you? Why are you acting like a nut? Stop crying," Shego ordered the baby. Well, she tried the order, but whenever Jayden cried, she more pled with the child than anything else.

"Honey, what are you grumbling about?" Kim inquired while turning over to face her spouse.

"It's Jade. She won't shut up," Shego replied.

"What?" Kim said while opening her eyes completely to focus on what was going on. She rubbed her eyes.

"It's Jade," the super-powered woman repeated.

"Oh, whassa matter with the baby?" Kim asked as she sat up and put her arms out for the child.

"Mah-mah!" Jayden hollered while putting out her arms to go to the redhead.

Shego let the baby go and Jayden pretty much jumped to her other mother. The redhead cradled the baby and then a look of alarm spread across her face that sort of frightened Shego. Kim felt the baby's forehead and cheeks.

"She feels kind of warm. I think she's sick," Kim replied.

"Sick?" Shego echoed as if she did not understand. So, Jayden was crying for a reason and not just being a brat? It was surprising news.

"Yeah, I think she's sick."

"Well…what do we do?" the green-skinned woman inquired as if she was at a loss for everything. She had never had to deal with a sick baby.

"I don't know," Kim admitted with a shrug. She was just as concerned as Shego about the baby. What were they going to do with Jayden if she was ill? She had never dealt with a sick baby either, after all.

"You call your mom. I'll call mine," Shego suggested.

Kim nodded while making sure to continue to rock Jayden, who made sure to continue bawling her eyes out. Their mothers were not too happy about being woken up in the middle of the night until they found out the reason why. They thought it was rather adorable about how much their daughters were worrying about little Jayden and they were willing to bet that it was nothing to be too concerned about.

Isabel and Ann did walk through a list of things that they wanted Kim and Shego to check to narrow down what might be wrong with the baby. They also had to try to calm their daughters down, who were just acting like Jayden had died in their arms, which was far from the case. Jayden was just crying at a decent volume, for her anyway. But, that was too much as far as Kim and Shego were concerned. They nearly got frantic when Jayden started coughing, but their mothers calmed them down about it. Isabel and Ann stayed on the phones with their children for a couple of hours until Jayden finally fell asleep.

Kim and Shego stayed awake, carefully watching their daughter as she slept. They were so scared. What if something happened? Would they be able to help her? What if she woke up crying again? How could they comfort her? What did they need to do?

Their mothers told them to take Jayden to the doctor in the morning since they were so worried. They were in agreement with that and planned to call the doctor in the morning and they were going in no matter what. They needed to know what was wrong with Jayden and how they could make her feel better.

----(Next day)

Jayden's doctor assured the worried mothers that Jayden just had a little cold and it would pass with the proper care and time. The two did not seem to believe that. The doctor was amused at how Kim and Shego were so worried Jayden and her little cold. Jayden was not helping, crying endlessly because of the sickness, just making her mothers believe that there was something seriously wrong with her.

The doctor wrote them a prescription for some cough syrup to help Jayden's cough and because she knew that if she did not give them something, they would just freak out more. She did inform them that they were lucky Jayden gave them over a year of being sick-free or they would have worried themselves sick and everyone would have been crying together. They did not seem the humor in anything coming out of their doctor's mouth at the time.

After the doctor visit, the mothers returned home with Jayden. Kim was rocking the baby, which Jayden seemed to like, even though she was still weeping. They did not have to worry about Todd bugging out for the moment because he went to go hang out with Ron and Bokuden.

"I'll go pick up the medicine. You'll be all right here with her alone?" Shego asked Kim as they went into the living room.

"You'll be right back, right?" the redhead asked, practically pleading with her mate to come right back.

"Of course," Shego replied. She definitely was not going to leave Kim alone for long while Jayden was so miserable. She was going to do her part as much as she could, especially since she had first thought the baby had been being a brat when she was actually sick.

"Okay," Kim agreed.

Shego leaned down and kissed Kim, more for support than anything else. She also kissed the baby and rubbed her head a bit, hoping to give her just a little bit of comfort. Jayden quieted down for a second, but then went back to her bawling. Shego looked at the baby with sorrowful eyes before pulling herself away from her family to go pick up the cough syrup.

Kim stripped the baby out of her outside clothing and put on some pajamas for her to make sure that Jayden was comfortable and warm. The child continued to make noise, although she was all cried out from bawling that morning. Jayden did cling to her mother the whole time, loving being bounced in Kim's arms, but still miserable. The redheaded adventurer felt horrible for the baby and wished that she would get well soon.

Shego was back in a flash, not even bothering to think about all of the motorists and pedestrians that she had to have traumatized during her brief trip. She just wanted to get back to the baby and her wife. She entered the house to see Kim rocking Jayden, who had cried herself to sleep for the moment.

They were thankful that Jayden was sleeping, even though they were still worried about her. Kim continued to pace while rocking their baby girl and Shego walked with her, caressing the baby's head, hoping to provide some comfort of her own to the child.

"I can't believe I didn't know she was sick," Shego said out of the blue.

"It's okay, sweetheart. It's not like you did anything to her and the only reason you didn't know was because she was warm," Kim replied.

"Still, I just thought she was being a brat and all I wanted to do was go to sleep," the pale woman stated. She felt guilty for missing the hints that Jayden was sick and the fact that she had really wanted nothing more than to go to sleep when she picked Jayden up last night.

"Shego, we both wanted to just go to sleep. Hell, I didn't even know the baby was in the room," Kim pointed out.

"You know, this is probably from taking her outside in the damn snow. Why the hell were we even doing that? What's she going to do out there?" the older woman wondered out loud for the most part.

"She was playing, Shego. You know she likes the snow and she likes being out there with us."

"No, no, no. We should've been more responsible than that. We shouldn't have taken her out there. What the hell is wrong with us?"

"Shego, calm down. She liked being outside."

"No, no, no. No more outside, so this can't happen again. What if she gets even sicker the next time?" Shego pointed out.

"Honey, you're talking crazy. Jade would probably kill us in our sleep if we stopped taking her outside. She's got to go outside, like any normal little kid. She's going to get sick every now and then. That's how life is, so just calm down," Kim replied.

Shego took in the words of her spouse. For once, Kim was the voice of reason in their relationship and Shego recognized that. She guessed that she was just anxious about their daughter being ill. It was stressing to know that their daughter was miserable and they would not do anything to relieve it right away.

Kim could relate to that. She felt almost helpless as Jayden cried in her arms earlier, as if begging her to take away the agony of her sickness. She wished that she could do something for the baby, but they just had to give her the medicine, be patient, and offer her whatever comfort that they could.

When Jayden woke up, she went back to crying. Kim rubbed her back for her while Shego tried to coax her into taking the cough syrup. Jayden caved and took the medicine, which probably tasted as good as it looked; copper never was a good color for a liquid. Jayden had to pause from weeping just to make a face in pure disgust. She then looked at Shego as if asking, "Lady, what the hell are you trying to do to me?"

The next time that Shego tried to give Jayden the cough syrup, the baby refused to take it. Todd had to act as a distraction for his She-she, making a face at the child to get her attention. By the time Jayden realized that she had been tricked, she had a spoonful of that terrible medicine in her mouth again. She made a face that seemed rather suspicious to her mother.

"You better not spit that out," Shego ordered the baby when she noticed the expression that Jayden was making. The little girl looked ready to just spit all the cough syrup up on the carpet.

Jayden decided against spitting the syrup out and swallowed the bitter concoction. Once that was out of the way, she went back to crying and she did that for the whole night and the day after. Her parents stayed up with her, calling to take days from work to be with the baby and support each other. Todd watched them those days, helping out where he could. He even rocked Jayden to comfort her somewhat while their parents got to catch a nap.

"You should get better soon, Jade. She-she and Kimmie are doing the best they can for you, so you gotta do the best you can to get better too. You get 'em all worried and everything when you cry too. So, you gotta get better," he urged his little sister while pacing in the living room.

Kim and Shego were knocked out on the sofa. They did not want to be more than a couple of feet away if Todd or Jayden needed them. They were totally knocked out, though, which was how they could sleep through Jayden's crying. Todd was confident enough in handling Jayden to let them sleep soundly and they had gone through everything that he might need to do while they were sleeping. He loved the fact that they had so much faith in him, even though they were right there in case something did go wrong.

He handled Jayden for an hour before their parents woke up and started dealing with her again. He shadowed them to help out when he could. They made sure to let him know that they were grateful for his willingness to help and his help altogether. After a few miserable days though, Jayden was showing signs of feeling like her old self, which just meant that she stopped all of the crying. She still wanted to be picked up and rocked, though.

"I'm so glad that's over and we can get some sleep now," Shego said as she and Kim hit the mattress on their bed with a vengeance. If they could just get six hours of sleep, they would thank every god in existence; hey, six uninterrupted hours was a lot in their house.

"Yeah," Kim agreed with a content sigh as she snuggled up close to Shego. Oh, yeah, that was just the best, she commented mentally.

Shego wrapped her arms around Kim while settling into her pillow. They closed their eyes. They were just drifting off to the sleep when the door was pushed open. They expected to hear the usual noise from Jayden, but they were surprised.

"Kimmie, She-she, I don't feel to well," Todd complained.

Shego and Kim both wanted to cry. What did the world have against them getting some sleep? They both got up and went to take care of Todd now.

--------------

Next time: the affects of Betty giving birth two months earlier than expected.


	22. Reason Twentytwo: Close to the edge

I don't own these characters. I don't own the original premise that this saga is based on. I also don't own Care Bears.

Reason Twenty-two: Close to the edge

_We all stand strong in the face of stress. It's just what we do, although sometimes it nearly gets to us._

Betty and Shego were in her office. They were going over an incident that Shego had been involved in a few days that ended with the bad guys being captured, but a section of a local mall being ruined. Shego, of course, did not see the problem and Betty would have been right with her if only it was not her responsibility to handle the mess that Shego created. So, mostly the meeting was about scolding the officer for her "careless" actions. And then suddenly, Betty gasped and stopped talking.

"Shit…" Betty muttered. "Shego, call Dahntay for me," the one-eyed woman requested as she started reaching for her phone.

"Why?" Shego asked curiously, especially since it seemed like the boss lady was about to call him herself.

"I think I just went into labor," the chief reported in tone that showed she was trying her very best to keep her usual composed demeanor, but it was a bit hard to do so.

"What the fuck!" Shego accidentally shouted. "You're not due for two more months!" she pointed out.

"No shit," Betty replied in a slightly angry voice because her friend was pointing out the obvious.

Shego quickly got on her phone to call Dahntay while Betty called her doctor. The two women did not stop when the phone calls were done. Shego drove her friend to the hospital and then was ordered to go back to work by her so-called friend. It would seem that Betty wanted her to go be interim chief ahead of schedule. Damn it, Shego mentally cursed. To further ruin her mood, she found out that Betty really was in labor. Apparently, her second child decided to show up on the scene two months ahead of schedule.

"Damn it," Shego huffed because of the suddenness of the situation. She did not know what she should be doing either. Should she go back to work like Betty ordered or should she stick around to make sure everything was all right?

Shego decided to go back to work, knowing that Betty would not want her pet-project in the hands of an incompetent bureaucrat for any amount of time. She did wait for Dahntay to show up, though. She would not have to worry too much about Betty as long as her husband was around.

"Where's Mayah?" Shego asked curiously when she noticed that he was at the hospital empty-handed.

"I dropped her off at your house if that's all right with you. Kim was there," he answered.

"That's cool. Take care of her while I go take care of her job," Shego commented and then she left the hospital.

The raven-haired woman rushed back to work and had to call an emergency meeting of the whole department. It was no easy task because her coworkers had a problem with listening to someone who was not Doctor Director, even if it was Shego. In the end, she won out through just the sheer force of her personality and they all filed into a conference room.

"Look, everybody, our fearless leader is having a pretty shitty day at the moment and had to go to the hospital for reasons that are none of your goddamn business, so don't ask. Just know that while she's gone, we're going to carry on to the best of our ability and not embarrass her. Now, everybody here knows that I'm in charge while she's gone, let's not make my day hell and I won't make your lives miserable. Now carry the fuck on," Shego announced in a slightly harsh tone. It was obvious that the day was already getting to her.

The other officers knew better than to argue considering Shego's tone. As soon as they were all gone, Shego sighed again and nervously rubbed her face with her hands. She hoped that everything was all right with Betty. She knew that the baby showing up ahead of schedule and so suddenly could not be a good thing.

--------------

"Hey, sweetheart, how was work?" Kim asked as Shego entered the house. She walked out of the living room to give up her usual tackling hug. She did not hit her green-skinned mate as hard as she typically would because it was clear from Shego's expression alone that something heavy was on her mind.

"It's fucking crazy. Betty suddenly went into labor this afternoon, but I'm guessing you know that since Dahntay stopped by to drop off Mayah. How's she behaving?" Shego countered while returning the embrace for a moment and then trying to take off her shoes while her spouse remained hanging on her.

"She's fine. She's in the living room with Jade. They're playing with the building blocks," Kim answered.

"That's good. Good thing you were home. What are you doing home, though?" the pale woman inquired curiously.

"I left work early because I told Yori I'd pick up Jade early because she had errands to run and no one wants to run errands while watching more than one of these little whirlwinds," the redhead answered.

Shego nodded because that answer was acceptable. Kim let her out of the crushing embrace and the super-powered woman went to take a nice, hot, long shower after going to greet her daughter and their little guest. She figured that the shower might help relax her. Once she was done with that, she figured that she was either going to call Dahntay to find out how things were with Betty or she was going to go up to the hospital personally depending on how Kim was handling the babies on her own.

Kim went back to the living room where Mayah and Jayden were still playing with the blocks, which was a random gift sent to Jayden by Ann. The two little girls seemed to like them enough; they had been playing with them for a couple of hours now. Playing with Jayden and Mayah consisted of the pair each building things, either separately or together, and then one of them knocking the creations down partway through construction. They would get into an "argument" with no words, but some pushing on Mayah's end and a head-butt on Jayden's end. Once they were done with the disagreement, which was generally when Kim stepped in, they went back to building things.

Kim curled up on the sofa while keeping an eye on the girls; they were sitting on the floor with the dozens of blocks. Shego joined them in the living room about a half-hour later. She was dressed in clothing that she would not be embarrassed to go outside in, just in case she had to go back out. She sat down next to Kim, who leaned against her as soon as she was down. She did not seem to be paying the petite hero any mind, though. She was using her cell phone, after all.

"Damn," Shego grumbled.

"What's wrong?" Kim asked curiously.

"He's not answering his phone," the pale woman answered as if she was angry about it, which she was. She just did not mean to let the emotion slip into her voice.

"Calm down. It might not be anything at all. I mean, you're not really supposed to use a cell phone in a hospital anyway. So, that might be it," the redhead pointed out to hopefully ease her wife's nerves. She knew that Shego was worried; Betty was her best friend, after all.

"Yeah, maybe. Look, are you good to handle them for a little while on your own?" Shego inquired.

"I guess," Kim answered.

"Okay, I'll be back," Shego said and she ripped herself away from the sofa kind of suddenly, which caused Kim to fall over. The green-skinned woman rushed out of the house.

"Mommy," Jayden called to Shego's retreating form, but the emerald-eyed female did not turn around. "Mommy?" Jayden said again, but looking at Kim for an explanation as to what just happened, it seemed.

"Don't worry, sweetie. Mommy just had to go see something. She'll be back soon," Kim assured the one-year-old with bright smile.

The smile seemed to be all Jayden needed. She turned her attention back to her blocks and what Mayah was doing. She got the urge to knock over whatever Mayah was building and she ran with that urge. Mayah took exception to her building being destroyed and she hit Jayden over it. Jayden was not looking to take that and so Kim had to step in and break up yet another fight. Part of the redhead wondered if Mayah and Jayden got along the way that Betty and Shego did early on in their lives. She was willing to bet that it was close enough.

--------------

Shego watched Betty from the doorway of her hospital bed. She had stayed there until she had been told that Betty had had the baby, a baby boy. She went to the room, but she could not bring herself to enter just yet. It was mostly due to the way her friend looked, as if the world had collapsed in on itself and she was the cause. Shego wondered if Betty thought that she lost the baby or something.

The green-skinned woman was trying to think of what she should say to Betty. Nothing was coming to mind. Part of her was telling her that she needed to just leave for the simple fact that she had never seen the one-eyed woman look as she did and it was probably something that Betty would prefer no one saw. Most of her was telling her that she needed to get her ass in there in case Betty really needed her. She listened to most of her, just in case.

"Hey there, road warrior," Shego remarked as she finally entered the room and made her presence known.

The older woman slowly, almost methodically turned her head toward Shego; it was rather creepy. Shego had to force herself not to cringe. When Betty saw who was there, she sighed and leaned her head back against her pillow. She stared at the ceiling with deep sorrow in her eye.

"Where's Dahntay?" Betty inquired, trying her best to sound normal, but failing miserably. She sounded like she did not want her friend around. She did not want Shego to see her in such a state, but she would rather Shego to anyone else. She really just wanted her husband around to comfort her and make her feel better. She was aware that it was not likely for Shego to make her feel better.

"Talking with some doctors," Shego answered.

"About the baby?" she asked anxiously.

"Yes, about the baby."

Betty nodded and Shego noticed that her friend's bottom lip was trembling. She knew that Betty was thinking the worst about things. After all, she had just given birth to her baby thirty-one weeks into her condition. That could not be a good feeling; it was terrifying, sickening feeling.

"This probably happened because I waited so long to have kids," Betty commented in a low voice. It seemed more like she was speaking to herself than anything else.

"Did your doctor say that?" Shego inquired, even though she knew the answer to that one.

"No…"

"Then shut the fuck up about your age. You're not old. Older women have had babies go all the way to term. They said stuff like this happens sometimes. It's not your fault the baby came early, so shut the fuck up about this 'too old' bullshit. You act like you're fucking sixty or something when your ass just barely turned thirty-five," Shego huffed.

She blamed Betty's mother for all the bullshit that they went through about Betty's age. The woman swore that Betty was always doing something too late or she was too old for something and Betty knew it was nonsense, but still, some small part of her believed the garbage that her mother spoon-fed her. Betty was far from too old to be having kids, especially if she was very much still biologically capable of doing so.

"If it's not my age, then why did this happen?" the one-eyed woman begged to know. Why she had she had her baby so soon? Why?

"Hell if I know. Sometimes, shit happens. You know that better than anybody. You don't need to worry, though. You know the kid's okay, right?" Shego commented. Well, the kid was as okay as someone in his position could be. Still, that was better than the alternative.

"Yeah…" Betty answered in an unsure tone. She had been told that her son was fine. Yes, she had a little baby boy. And, boy, he was little.

"Then stop acting like this. He's going to be totally fine and everything's going to work out," Shego declared in a rather dispassionate tone, like it was no big deal.

"Where's Mayah?" the one-eyed woman asked curiously.

"She's at my house, fighting with Jade as usual. Pumpkin is keeping a good eye on them, so you don't have to worry about her. We'll keep her for as long as you need us to," the pale woman answered.

"Thanks," Betty whispered.

Shego nodded, not sure what else to say. She eased out of the room as Dahntay showed up and went right to Betty. The usually strong woman responded to him by wrapping her arms around him and weeping into his chest. She was so sure that it was somehow her fault that the baby came early. Added to that was the anxiety that their baby was not going to make it since he did come so early and so, Betty broke down.

--------------

Kim fed Mayah and Jayden some dinner, which was not too difficult. Mayah liked to feed herself and Jayden liked to try to feed herself. They were having spaghetti; Kim had cooked. So, there was a big mess on the table when the girls were done, but they had gotten their fill.

After dinner, she bathed both girls, which did not seem to bother them. They splashed around in the five inches of water that Kim put in the tub; she did not take any chances by going over five inches. She cleaned them both up and dressed them in pajamas; Dahntay had the presence of mind to bring a bag over for his daughter. It was then that Mayah seemed to understand that she was staying the night and her parents were gone.

"Where Mommy?" Mayah asked Kim.

"Your Mommy is at the hospital. She's having your little brother or sister," Kim answered.

Mayah nodded to that one, seeming to understand. She remembered her parents telling her that her mother was carrying around a brother in her tummy. But, she still had another question.

"Where Daddy?" the two-year-old inquired.

"He's with your Mommy," Kim replied.

"When back?" the toddler asked.

"I don't know the answer to that one, Mayah. Give them a couple of days and I'm sure they'll be back and you'll be going home with your new brother or sister," the hero replied with a smile.

Mayah nodded, not that she understood all of that. She just got the part that her parents would be back, which was enough for her. She had never spent the night away from her parents, but she was willing to give it a try since they were going to be back and she liked being at the Possible-Gooding house for the most part.

"Now, what do you two say we watch a movie?" Kim suggested. There were certain movies that they had that always put Jayden and Mayah to sleep, no matter when they watched it.

The girls cheered and they all went into the living room. Kim laid down a blanket on the floor, knowing that they were not going to make it through thirty minutes of the show. The girls sat down on the blanket and Kim put the movie on. Twenty minutes later, they were totally knocked out.

Kim took the time to take a shower of her own and get into her own pajamas. She wondered where her spouse was by that time too, but by the time she went back downstairs, she had the answer to that question. Shego was in the living room, turning the movie and television off.

"Hey you," Kim said as a greeting, which caused Shego to turn around.

"Hey yourself," the pale woman replied, lacking anything better to say.

"How'd everything go?"

Shego made a meaningless hand gesture, which showed that she did not want to talk about it. "We're going to have Mayah until Bets gets out of the hospital and you know the bullshit that comes with me being in charge for the moment. I might get home later than usual and shit like that," she muttered.

"Okay," Kim agreed. "How about you go get out of those clothes while I put them in the bed and then when I'm done, I'll give you a massage," she offered since her wife seemed really rundown.

Shego nodded because that did sound like a mighty fine idea. She went upstairs while Kim lifted Jayden and then Mayah in her arms. She was back in shape, so it was not difficult for her to carry the kids up to Jayden's room. She put them both down in Jayden's bed, which was large enough for the two of them and had some room to spare. She just hoped that they did not wake up in the middle of the night and start fighting with each other.

She gave them each a different blanket, in case they moved around a lot in their sleep; Jayden typically was stationary for the night once she picked a spot, but she was not sure if Mayah was the same. Once they were secure, she exited the room, making sure to leave the door slightly ajar in case Jayden woke up and decided that she wanted to sleep with her parents. She then made her way to Shego.

She knew from the past that Shego was going to be tense until Betty came back to work. She hoped that Betty recovered from childbirth quickly and took her job from Shego before the pale woman ended up going out of her mind from being in charge. But, there seemed to be more to Shego's mood and Kim knew that it had to do with Betty's sudden labor. She hoped that everything was all right with the one-eyed woman.

Kim did not ask about Betty, though. She figured that her spouse would talk about things when she was ready. So, all she did was take care of tension in Shego's body at the moment, giving her a deep, lengthy massage. Of course, the massage did not remain legitimate as it proceeded on. Kim just could not give a totally legitimate massage when it came to her wife.

----(New day)

Betty was released from the hospital a couple of days after giving birth, but the baby was not. Dahntay came to pick up Mayah from Kim and Shego's house before going to retrieve Betty from the hospital. He thought that seeing Mayah as soon as possible would help Betty, who was overwrought over what was happening with their son.

"Mommy!" Mayah cheered as she caught sight of her mother in the hospital room.

"Oh, hey, Mee-mee," Betty greeted her daughter. "Mee-mee" was her nickname for the little girl.

Mayah charged over to her mother, happy to see her again. She leaped into Betty's arms and gave her mother big hug. The embrace made Betty smile; she was feeling better than she had in two days thanks to that hug. She sighed a bit, as if she had been relieved of some great pain.

"Mommy, where bruddah?" Mayah asked curiously. She had been told that her mother had brought her brother into the world, so where was he? She wanted to meet the guy and see what he was all about.

"He'll be coming home later," Betty answered in a low voice.

"Why?"

"Well…your brother's a little sick right now and the doctors need to look after him," the one-eyed woman explained. She hoped that Mayah just let the subject drop, but the two-year-old seemed to be on a topic that concerned her deeply.

"Sick? We stay," Mayah volunteered. She was saying that they should stay at the hospital. After all, she knew that she would not want to be left sick in the hospital, so she doubted that her brother would like that either.

"Mee-mee, we can't stay," Betty replied.

"Why?" Mayah was confused and it showed on her face. Her eyebrows were all close together and her mismatched eyes stared intensely at her mother.

Dahntay decided to step in and he took Mayah from Betty before the child really annoyed the one-eyed woman. He collected Betty's bag for her and ushered her out of the room. Mayah continued going on about how they could not leave her brother. She was very insistent about it and they did not even make it out of the hospital before Betty started crying.

Betty did control herself and managed to not outright sob, but she did have to cover her face with her hand. Dahntay could tell she was weeping while Mayah was oblivious to her mother's plight. Dahntay tried to get the toddler to be quiet about her brother, but she was not taking the hint. He tried to calm Betty down because the more Mayah went on, the more she cried. Nothing was working for him.

----(New day)

Shego growled in fury as she went through all of the paperwork on her desk. Betty's job seemed like endless paperwork. How the fuck could the people she work with be so fucking stupid as to rack up all of the complaints that they did? Actually, the state of most of their reports answered that question. She was pretty sure that most of the people in the department were preschool dropouts. Anyone that misspelled "and" more than once in a report could not have gone to kindergarten in her opinion.

And then there were the phone calls. She hated every single person that called her. From the mayor of Go City on down to the average person in the streets, she hated them all! Everyone called with stupid problems in her opinion. People wanting to know what she planned to do because one of the officers had wrecked something or another, yet they always managed to leave out that the officer had saved their lives or several other people's lives.

So, she was pretty much buried in paper, phone calls, and the occasional email. Then there were the daily outbursts from the assholes doing the job. Usually, as an officer, she would not have to deal with their bullshit unless the boss forced her to, but as the boss, she was forced to have to deal with their idiocy and she was surrounded by dozens of idiots. She was ready to just claw her own eyes out, but it would be hard to do since she still clipped her nails for the most part because of Jayden. Still, she was prepared to try…when she got a spare moment, which was never with her current job.

"Fuck, where's a pen?" Shego muttered as she started searching the desk for the aforementioned item. Not spotting one within the first five seconds of her search, she snapped. "Goddamn it, why's there never a fucking pen around here!" she screamed as she kicked the desk away.

From the stress level, it might have been assumed that Shego had been doing the job for years rather than the couple of weeks that she had. They were just really hard weeks. Betty's son was still in the hospital and Betty was pretty much the very definition of depressed, refusing to leave her bedroom for anything. It was a good thing there was bathroom in the bedroom or things might have gotten complicated for her.

It would not have been so bad, if only the people at the department were not so completely brain-dead (in Shego's opinion) and the politicos of the city were not always breathing down her neck. And now, she could not find a pen when she needed one! Ah, she hated everything!

A few people that were outside of her temporary office that had been thinking about going in reconsidered their plans as they watched Shego wail on the desk through a window. Yeah, they decided that things could wait until she was a little less angry. She only took her wrath out on the desk for a minute before she realized what she was doing, namely killing Betty's desk, and she halted her actions. As soon as she stopped, a pen rolled out from underneath a stack of papers.

"Son of a bitch," Shego huffed.

--------------

Kim was sitting up with Jayden. They were on the sofa in the living room, waiting for Shego to come in from work. They were not fans of Shego being interim chief any more than the pale woman herself. She got home so late some nights because of rush work having to be put in or surprise calls from some political figure. Kim did not know how Dahntay could put up with it in regards to Betty, although she did consider that Betty might be a bit more proficient at the job since she had been doing it so much longer than Shego and it was her creation.

Jayden was trying her best to remain awake. She just wanted to see her Mommy for a little while before calling it a night. Besides, her Mom was still awake and that was reason enough to remain awake. She unfortunately did not make it; Shego came in close to ten that night. Kim put the baby to bed when Shego finally came in.

"Hey you," Kim called to Shego from the stairs as the green-skinned woman entered the house.

"Hey yourself," Shego replied with a bit of a laugh. They seemed to using those lines a lot lately and it sort of amused her for a reason that was beyond her. "Why aren't you in bed, yet?" she inquired while taking her shoes off.

"Waiting for you, of course. Jade tried to keep me company, but she didn't make it," the redhead replied as she went downstairs and greeted Shego with a proper embrace, which caused Shego to sigh. It was a content sound.

"Damn, it feels good to be home," the older woman said and she returned the hug.

"I'll bet it does. I'm glad you're here. How long do you think you'll be doing this?"

"I don't know yet. Bets is still having her problems. I'll try to get in earlier tomorrow. I would've gotten in sooner, but just as I was leaving like a million people decided to call and prove to be assholes," Shego explained. It really did feel like the phone never stopped ringing in the chief's office. She was ready to just melt the stupid device.

"It's okay. I made dinner. You want some?"

"What kind of pasta is it?" Shego asked with a sigh. She knew that it had to be pasta because Kim only needed an excuse to make pasta after all and she could feed it to Jayden, so it all worked out for her.

"Spaghetti."

"Again?" Shego inquired in disbelief. "You better stop feeding our baby spaghetti when I'm not around."

Kim just grinned shamelessly. Shego smiled a bit herself and caressed the top of Kim's head just because she was happy to be back home. She even went and had some spaghetti; Kim stuck around to keep her company. When she was done, she went and took a shower. She then went to go see Jayden.

Shego did not wake the baby up. She just wanted to see the girl. She fixed the Care Bear blanket that Jayden was halfway covered in. She missed the baby, she commented mentally. Ever since she took over Betty's job, she mostly just saw Jayden in the morning when they were all hustling to get out of the house on time. She used to be able to hang out with their crazy kid and her nutty spouse in the evening, but that had been unlikely for the past two weeks and she could only guess that it was going to continue on.

She also had to worry about the upcoming holiday of Thanksgiving. She wanted to have it at the house again because she knew that Kim had enjoyed it last year. She was not sure if she was going to be able to do it again now that she had to worry about being the chief. She did not like that because she was sure that her family, namely Kim, Todd, and Jayden would love for the Gooding and Possible family to get together again under their roof. She had to think of something and she had to hope that everything went all right with Betty.

----(New day)

Shego was lying in the bed as if she had fallen out of the sky and landed there. She was sleeping and she really wished that she could do it the whole day, but it was Thanksgiving. She still had plenty of cooking to do. All she had managed to do last night was the turkey and then they had to run out to get Todd. When she had hit the bed last night, she had fallen asleep instantly; Betty's job was kicking her ass it would seem.

Shego was taken from her sleep by a curious sound, people. She could hear people downstairs. She shot up and looked at the clock to find that it was already the afternoon. For some reason, the alarm had not gone off on the clock to wake her up that morning to give her the chance to finish cooking. Oh no, then they had company for Thanksgiving and no food, she realized. It was about to be the worst Thanksgiving ever.

She threw on some casual clothing and decided to go downstairs. It did not sound like the worst Thanksgiving ever and it did not smell like it either. There was the scent of food hanging heavily in the air. She wondered what was going on, so she went to the living room and saw that all the same guests from last year were there along with one new edition.

"He is a tiny little thing," Isabel commented. She was holding Betty's son, who had been recently discharged from the hospital with a clean bill of health. He was adorable according to everyone around and he looked just like his father, except with onyx eyes like his mother.

"Yeah, that's what he gets for showing up so early," Dahntay remarked.

Betty laughed a bit, even though she did not think that his birth was a laughing matter in the slightest. She decided that she was not going to have any more children after her son. She planned to start taking birth control pills to avoid getting pregnant again. She really disliked her son being born prematurely and she did feel that it was somehow her fault. She did not want to chance something worse happening to another child. What if she miscarried or something on the next pregnancy? She did not want to chance that. She had even considered getting her tubes tied, but Dahntay talked her out of that.

"Hey, Aztek's a little warrior, aren't you?" Isabel asked the baby.

Aztek was the name of Betty and Dahntay's son. Shego had confessed a while ago that she was curious as to why the couple named their children after Mesoamerican empires. Once it was explained to her that they wanted to name their children after great empires that changed the world in someway, Shego had another question. She wanted to know "why the fuck do you keep spelling their names wrong?" Betty admitted that was a valid question and just said that she wanted the kids to be unique too.

Shego looked around in the living room and did not see Kim, so she did not bother to stick around. She went to the kitchen, which was where she found her little wife and noticed that there was plenty of food to go around. Her jaw practically hit the floor.

"Pumpkin, did you do all of this?" Shego asked in an amazed tone.

Kim smiled. "Hey, you should know that I can do anything by now," she remarked as she went over to Shego and hugged her.

"You are amazing…" Shego whispered.

"I have to be to keep up with you," Kim joked with a smile.

Shego chuckled a bit and just held Kim to her. They exchanged a loving kiss and then they both went back to the living room together. Jayden cheered when her mothers entered the room and she ran to Shego as best she could. She put her hands out for her Mommy to pick her up, which Shego complied with quickly. She held Jayden to her and was just happy to see the baby. Topping the day was the news that Betty would be back to work on Monday now that she was assured that Aztek was healthy and Shego was definitely going to be promoted considering all of the work that she put in as interim chief. There was a lot to be thankful for that day all around.

--------------

Next time: skip a couple of years and the kids go trick-or-treating and Easter egg-hunting.


	23. Reason Twentythree: Rainbows

I don't own these characters and I don't own the original premise that this saga is based on. I also don't own Spiderman, Naruto, Care Bears, Friday the 13th, Robin, Nightwing, Batgirl, or Oracle. I do own Todd, Jayden, Bokuden, Raziya, Mayah, and Aztek.

A/N: there's some religious talk toward the end of the chapter. It's nothing too deep, but I figure I'd warn folks about and ask you not to take it to heart.

2nd A/N: Yogurth drew a great pic that has Todd and the lil kids in it along with Kim, Shego, and Betty. The link is on the bottom of my profile and you really should check it out.

Reason Twenty-three: Rainbows

_You ever get the feeling that it's going to be a long childhood, even though you're not the one growing up?_

"I can't believe I agreed to this," Betty muttered to herself. She was holding Aztek in her arms, even though he was close to two years old.

"You can't believe it? Imagine my surprise then," Shego remarked.

The best friends were standing in the living room of Shego and Kim's house. They could not believe that Betty had agreed to let Mayah go trick-or-treating with Kim and Ron acting as chaperons. It was hard to believe that they were responsible adults when they were dressed in Halloween costumes and Ron was hollering about how much candy he was going to collect.

It was Mayah's first time going out for Halloween, as it was for her friends too. She was four while the others were three. They were all dressed and ready for the event too, especially hyped as they had been told there was going to be candy involved. Aztek was not going because they did not think that he was old enough yet, but they figured that if all went right, he could join the group next year.

"What the hell is Mayah supposed to be anyway?" Shego asked curiously, even though she could guess.

"Her hero," Betty answered with a smile.

Shego rolled her eyes; Mayah was clearly dressed up as her mother. The eye-patch sort of gave it away. She had a mini-version of the blue jumpsuit that Betty often wore to work, just in case she had to go out on a call, which happened more often than people would think because she liked to make sure everyone was doing things with some regard to regulations. Since Mayah lacked the short haircut that her mother sported, she had the front of her hair brushed to the side like her mother's and then pulled into a ponytail. Her eye-patch was covering her brown eye, so she was showing her onyx-colored eye. She really did just look like a short, tan Betty.

"What the hell is Jade? A booger?" Betty inquired quite seriously.

"Don't call my goblin a booger. Her brother's the booger," Shego remarked with a little smile. "She's a Care Bear."

Betty had to force herself not to laugh at that. A brat like Jayden had the nerve to be dressed up like a Care Bear? It was actually obvious that she was a Care Bear, a light green one to be precise with a four-leaf clover on her belly; the outfit that she was in pretty much a bear suit that she was zipped into. Jayden had a love for Care Bears, but only certain color ones. They had to be a light green, a pink, or a light purple; the purple sneaked in thanks to her uncle. Her parents were not sure what her thing was with Care Bears, but they just fed into the obsession, much like Shego did back when Kim had a thing for Cuddle Buddies.

"I'm guessing kids don't just wear Spiderman outfits anymore. What is Bo supposed to be?" Monique asked curiously, speaking to Yori. Once that question was answered, her next was going to be what hell was Ron supposed to be?

"Oi, I'm Naruto, dattebayo!" Bokuden declared proudly. He was dressed in an orange jumpsuit with headband that had the symbol of Konoha. He even had his blonde hair spiked like the character.

"Dattebayo?" Monique echoed in a puzzled voice. She was used to Bokuden saying "oi," which was just "hey" in Japanese. It seemed to be his favorite word and he used it constantly, to the point of annoyance sometimes.

"The character Naruto says it almost every time he speaks," Yori explained as to why her son had added that "dattebayo" bit in. "As far as I know, it doesn't really have a meaning to it," she added.

"So, who's Ron dressed as?" Monique asked.

"One of the leaders from the show," Yori answered. She did not pay the show much mind; it was more something that Bokuden and Ron were into. Ron made it a point to at least experience everything his son liked and found out why the boy liked it just to make sure he was not wasting his time on complete junk; partial junk was all right, though.

"I'm the Yondiame," Ron answered in a bit of a huff, as if he was insulted that they did not know that. He was dressed as the fourth Hokage from the show Naruto.

"Really? You look like an older version of whoever Bo is with your hair spiked like that," Monique remarked.

"Whatever happened to just being ninjas or something?" Dahntay wondered out loud while looking at the children.

"Naruto is a ninja," Bokuden informed the former thief.

"Dressed like that? They'd see him coming a mile away. He could signal planes in that outfit," Shego commented. In fact, it looked like it was his job to signal planes in that outfit, she thought.

"Yeah," Bokuden agreed with a bit of a nod. He did think it was a rather bright outfit for a ninja and he had pointed that out to his father, who could not explain why the character would be in such colorful gear for ninja missions. Yori was not much help either because she could not figure out why a ninja would chose such a bright color for missions.

"While we're questioning everyone's costumes, what the hell is Razi?" Shego inquired while looking at the aforementioned child. Something told the pale woman that she really did not want to know what Raziya was, but her curiosity was getting the better of her at the moment.

"I'm Jason," Raziya answered as if it was obvious and the scary thing was that it was obvious. She had on the hockey mask and grey jumpsuit along with a plastic machete that had been smeared with fake blood.

"You tell 'em, baby," Felix said proudly.

"You're a sick bastard, Felix, you know that?" Shego commented, knowing that he was the one that put Raziya in that costume. After all, he was the one that watched slasher movies with the kids. She was blaming him if one of the kids turned into a deranged serial killer.

"Sick bastard," Jayden repeated while pointing at Felix. He laughed a bit, used to her mouth by now. She was probably the most foul-mouthed three-year-old on the planet, he thought.

"Jade," Kim admonished the toddler. Jayden had developed a habit of repeating after Shego, but only when swear words involved, which was why she was foul-mouthed.

"Leave her alone, Princess," Shego replied. She did not care about what came out of Jayden's mouth, as long as the curse words were not directed toward her or Kim in some negative manner.

"I don't want her talking like you do," Kim argued.

"Too damn bad," Shego replied with a smug smile and Jayden chimed right on time.

"Too damn bad," the three-year-old echoed.

Kim sighed and just gave up for the moment. As usual, Kim was wearing a costume that paired with Todd, who was keeping with his love of Robin-themed Halloweens. He was dressed as Nightwing while Kim was dressed as the first Batgirl; he was starting to stretch things, he thought. He did want Kim to go as the Oracle, but Felix would not loan them his wheelchair for the night. Todd had actually been on the verge of calling Felix stingy for not sharing his chair, but he decided against that because it was not that important.

"Okay, everyone got their bags?" Kim asked the kids.

"Yes," they all confirmed.

"Then, let's go!" Ron cheered and motioned for them all to go out the door. The kids followed Ron while Kim brought up the rear.

"Do you get the feeling more of us should've gone?" Monique wondered loud as the door closed.

"They'll be fine," Yori replied. "…Right?" She looked around the room for some kind of confirmation.

"Wanna bet?" Shego remarked with a smile that said she was dead serious. Kim and Ron be fine with their insane progeny? She highly doubted it.

"Twenty says a house freaks the kids out so badly they all have to come back," Dahntay said while going in his pocket.

"What? Twenty on them coming back after almost losing someone," Shego said. She knew for a fact that they better not lose her damn child.

"That one sounds more likely, but I say they come back just from the kids getting tired," Felix offered. He knew that the toddlers would only be able to go so far before they were just sick of walking, even if candy was involved.

--------------

The kids were all behaving pretty well, doing as they usually did when they were all out. Mayah was holding Todd's hand because they were all taught to practice the buddy-system and when Todd was around, she liked him to be her buddy. Jayden never huffed about wanting to hold her brother's hand, having a good time with Bokuden and Raziya; all three of them held hands as buddies. They liked to bug out, swinging their hands or pulling each other to one side, but they knew better than to do anything that might endanger one of them falling into the street. Kim and Ron walked behind the group to keep an eye on them.

When they came to the first house, they all gave out a hearty "trick-or-treat!" to the Dracula that answered the door; Todd had taught them the phrase and told them to always say it loudly when someone answered the door. They did not jump because of the monster, not even thinking about being scared. Monsters had yet to scare that lot, having watched tons of monster movies with Felix.

"Such cute little goblins," the Dracula commented and then placed candy in the children's bags, which got a surprised reaction.

All of the little children gasped in horror and quickly turned their bags upside down to dump the candy out. Ron and Kim were confused by the kids' actions, as was the kind man that was giving them the candy. The little ones all breathed sighs of relief once the candy was safely on the ground.

"We never take candy from strangers!" Mayah informed the Dracula, pointing an authoritative finger at the confused man. It was almost like she was accusing him of some heinous crime.

"Excuse us," Kim said with a nervous laugh to the man as she bent down to talk to the kids.

"Mom, you should beat him up for tryna give us candy like that," Jayden suggested while pointing up at the bad man in her and her friends' opinions. She knew that her mothers fought bad guys and she felt that he was a very bad guy for trying to get them to break the rules and take candy from a stranger.

"Okay, guys, I know we always tell you never take candy from strangers, but today is the exception to that rule," Kim tried to explain.

"No, no, no, we not s'pposed to take candy," Bokuden reiterated the idea of the little girls. They had been told plenty of times that they were never to take candy from strangers and they definitely were not going to do it in front of two of the people that had told them that rule.

"No, really, it's all right this time," Ron tried to assure his son and the other children.

"How's it 'kay now, but no other time?" Raziya asked, almost as if she had him cornered with logic.

"Because it's Halloween," Ron answered.

"So?" the four little kids inquired. They were not following. What did the day have to do with obeying rules?

Ron and Kim tried their best to explain to the children why it was all right to take candy that night. The children did not seem to be buying it, but they eventually agreed with the parents. Once that was settled, they moved on to the next house and the kids freaked out again when candy was placed in their bags. Ron and Kim looked at each other and sighed; it would seem that they had their work cut out for them.

--------------

The front door opened and four kids practically flew into the house, looking for parents for various reasons. Mayah ran to Betty and climbed into her lap, wrapping her arms around her mother for security reasons. It was a good thing that Dahntay was holding Aztek or Mayah would have just crushed her little brother if he was in their mother's arms. Betty looked down at her daughter, curious as to what was wrong with the child and she was not the only parent wondering such things.

Jayden ran to Shego, tugging at her mother's pants for her attention. "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mom did a bad thing!" the child reported.

"What did Mom do now?" Shego inquired with a sigh. It was rare for Jayden to be telling on her mom, but usually when she did, it was for some crazy reason.

"She took candy from strangers!" Jayden answered.

"Dad did too, Ma!" Bokuden added in as he ran to Yori.

"And Auntie Kim and Uncle Ron tried to make us take it too!" Raziya finished the whole deal while leaping into her father's lap.

"Wow, remind me never to rob a bank with these guys," Kim remarked as she, Ron, and Todd entered the house. She shut the door behind them. She and Ron were holding two bags each; they had done the candy-begging for the little ones since they refused to take candy from the strangers.

Yori just laughed a bit while going to pick up a pile of money that was in the middle of the living room floor. Ron thought that was a curious move. He had to ask about that as he made his way into the living room; he dropped Raziya's bag of candy in off with Monique along the way.

"Hey, babe, what's with the money?" Ron asked curiously.

"Nothing," Yori answered with a sly smile. She had tried to tell everyone that the thing that would bother the kids the most would be the fact that people that they did not know were trying to give them candy, but no one had listened to her.

"Of all the things that happened," Shego muttered in disbelief. She lost twenty dollars, but at least her daughter was in one piece. She supposed that the brats were going to have to adjust to the idea of trick-or-treating.

----(New day)

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Shego inquired, speaking to Betty. They were standing in Betty's large backyard. It was them, their spouses, and all of Kim's friends too. They all hung out a lot more now, trying to promote friendships between their children, which seemed to be working like a well-oiled machine.

"What's the harm in it?" Betty countered.

"With this lot?" Shego said while motioning to their children, who were with Bokuden and Raziya as usual and standing a few yards away. Aztek was not with the group, having fallen asleep on his father, who was resting in a lounge chair behind Shego and Betty.

"What could it hurt, really?" Betty inquired curiously. Things should go fine, she thought.

"With this lot?" Shego repeated, still pointing to their children.

"Okay, really, how could they not like this?"

"Just wait and see. They haven't let us down yet," Shego remarked with an amused smirk.

The four children were standing around in a circle. They were staring at a curious item that Mayah was holding. They had never seen anything like it and they really did not understand how it got to be the way that it was. They did not even want to touch it, so they were awed by the fact that Mayah was holding it.

"The hell's it?" Jayden muttered while taking a brave poke at the thing, which happened to be an egg. It happened to be a very colorful egg since it was Easter.

The kids were supposed to be having an Easter egg-hunt, but they did not really understand the concept and they were too amazed by the thing in Mayah's hand to care about hunting for anything at the moment. Betty had thought that it would be a fun little thing to do with the kids and the others sort of agreed. Betty, Monique, and Yori had come together to paint the eggs, but Dahntay had hidden them around the yard. Kim and Ron had gone out and gotten Easter baskets for the kids, but they had not given them those yet. Everyone was waiting to see them just make it through the egg-hunt.

"My mommy says it's an egg," Mayah answered.

"Wha laid a egg like this?" Bokuden wondered out loud.

"Well, my mommy says something about an Easter bunny," Mayah recalled.

"So, a bunny laid this egg?" Raziya guessed. That did not sound right to her or her friends.

"But, bunnies don't lay eggs, right?" Bokuden asked and Mayah and Raziya shrugged. They all looked at their resident animal expert, Jayden. "Bunnies don't lay eggs, right?" he repeated.

"Nope. Bunnies are mammals and mammals don't lay eggs. Birds lay eggs, reptiles lay eggs, and anphibadans lay eggs," Jayden answered. She was trying to say "amphibians" on that last one. Kim had obviously already started getting to her about animals and she was showing signs of being into the same creatures as her mom.

"Well, this isn't a bird egg," Raziya pointed out.

"Not a snake egg either," Jayden stated.

"So…maybe a bunny did lay it," Bokuden offered. It was the best information that they had to go on at the moment.

"But…they don't lay eggs," Jayden insisted. She knew for a fact that bunnies did not lay eggs; her mom said so. Her mom did not lie. Hell, her mom did not even kid around; her mommy did that one.

"Well, then where did this thing come from?" Mayah inquired.

"Hell if I know," Jayden replied honestly.

"Doesn't make any sense," Bokuden muttered and Raziya nodded in complete agreement. Where did the colorful egg come from?

"I know!" Mayah suddenly shouted out of the blue. Her friends looked at her, waiting for her big suggestion. "Let's ask Smiley!" she declared with a bright smile. He was super-smart, after all.

"Yeah, he does know everything," Jayden concurred.

"I'll go get him!" Mayah volunteered.

No one objected to that plan and Mayah ran off with the weirdo egg. She returned quickly, pulling Todd along for the ride. She had not bothered to explain why they needed him, but she did say that they needed his help. They all turned their attention to the "all-knowing Smiley."

"Bro, what kinda egg's this?" Jayden asked while pointing to the egg that Mayah was still holding in her hands.

"It's a chicken egg," Todd answered easily and honestly. He was not the type that would lie to the kids and make up some wild story to get them to bug out even more than he already knew they were doing. He had spent enough time with them to know that they confused themselves enough without any help from anyone else.

"Musta been a rainbow chicken," Raziya reasoned and her friends nodded in agreement. They typically saw white chickens in books and on television and those chickens laid white eyes, so logically a rainbow-colored chicken could lay an egg like the one Mayah was holding. Mystery solved as far as they were concerned, but then there was another question.

"Are there rainbow chickens?" Bokuden wondered out loud. He had never seen one, after all.

"No, there aren't rainbow chickens. It's a regular chicken egg that was painted. It's probably hardboiled. Look," Todd said while taking the egg from Mayah.

The little girl did not object and they watched as Todd peeled away the shell of the egg, revealing the white underneath. He then bit into the top of it.

"See, hardboiled," the redhead said while showing them the egg.

"Ohhh!" they all marveled at that.

"There are more around the yard. Your mom hid them and you guys have to find them," Todd explained. It was supposed to be an Easter egg hunt, but the kids had gotten caught up trying to figure out what kind of egg Mayah had been holding.

"Are they all hardboiled?" Bokuden asked curiously. His eyebrow was cocked high, showing his interest.

"Yeah," Todd answered and that was enough to get the blonde four-year-old moving. His friends followed suit.

--------------

"See, they're looking and everything," Betty boasted when she noticed the kids now searching the backyard for eggs.

"I still say this isn't going to work," Shego replied. She did not care that they were looking now. She was sure that they were going to find a way to screw things up and make the egg-hunt way more difficult than it needed to be.

"I still say I'm probably going to Hell for this one," Ron remarked. He was sitting in a lounge chair off to the side. He doubted that he would be the only going to Hell for what they were doing.

"Hey, if not for this, then for something else," Monique commented with a laugh. She was also in a lounge chair and passing the time by doing crossword puzzles while she had the time to waste.

"Isn't that always the way?" Felix joked. "How are they doing there anyway? They close to any eggs?"

"Well, Smiley got them motivated to look, but they don't look like they finding anything," Kim said while watching the kids carefully. The kids were just all over the backyard and coming up with nothing.

"Where'd you hide these eggs, Bet? In California?" Shego remarked.

"Dahntay hid them, not me," Betty defended herself while motioning to her husband, who was rubbing Aztek's back to make sure that he stayed asleep and not listening to anything coming from the rest of the group.

"Does he know they're only four and three?" Monique asked because those kids were not finding anything.

"He might've neglected to take that into consideration," Betty remarked with a laugh.

--------------

The toddlers were having no luck in locating any eggs. They all stopped and looked at each other, hoping someone had an idea. They all shrugged; they had nothing so far.

"Hey, dogs can sniff stuff out," Jayden said.

"So, maybe your dogs can sniff out the eggs," Raziya finished the thought, speaking to Mayah.

"Yeah," Jayden agreed because that was going to be just what she suggested.

Mayah ran off to go get the dogs; all three of them. Between the dogs, she liked Leonardo the most, although she loved all of the canines. It was just that she could ride Leonardo like horse because he was so large. She was doing that in fact when she returned with the dogs.

--------------

"What are they doing now?" Shego wondered aloud as Mayah dragged the dogs into the situation.

"They're not going to use those guys for what I think they are," Kim muttered and then she noticed the kids directing the dogs. Apparently, they were using the canines to locate the eggs.

"Is that even going to work?" Ron asked.

"A dog can't sniff out what it doesn't know. Yelling 'egg' at them isn't going to help," Kim answered and she could see the kids were doing just that.

"They're too smart for their own good," Monique commented. After all, how many other toddlers would have thought to employ dogs to find Easter eggs, but in the end, not use the canines properly?

"That they are," Yori agreed.

"Speaking of smart, I wanted to tell you guys that I found a fantastic private school that we could send the kids to. I set up an interview to get Mayah into the kindergarten this September. I think you two can do the same with Bokuden," Betty informed Ron and Yori, although she was telling them all about the school.

"Isn't Bo's birthday too late?" Ron asked.

"No, they'll take him as long as he's going to be five this year, especially if he shows promise. And while Bo's a little…um…special, he's a pretty smart kid," Betty answered. She was pretty sure that Bokuden could pass the requirements for the school, even though he was a little crazy.

"What do you say, babe?" Ron asked his wife.

"It would be great if he could get a head start in school instead of starting a grade behind," Yori answered.

"It's a really good school. I'll get you all the information before you leave," Betty said. "I mean all of you, because you guys do know you're going to have send Razi and Jade there if Mayah and Bo get in," she added in pointing to the other parents.

"If it's a good school, I don't have a problem with that," Monique answered and Felix nodded in agreement.

"It better be a good school," Shego stated as if that was a threat. She was willing to bet that it was a marvelous school though, if Betty was willing to send Mayah there, so she doubted that she would have any real problem with sending Jayden there when the time came.

Their conversation was cut short as they heard screams of triumph. They turned to see that all of the kids had found some eggs. The children then dashed over to their parents, wanting them to crack the eggs open, so that they could eat the insides. The parents were stunned by that; they thought that the kids would at least enjoy the colors. Once the eggs were opened, the kids sat in the dirt and started eating the tasty insides. And then they had questions.

"Mom, what's Easter?" Jayden asked Kim, looking up at the redhead. She was sitting down at Kim's feet.

"It's a holiday," Kim answered simply, not thinking to go into the details.

"What kinda holiday?" Bokuden chimed in. He was sitting by his mother's feet and thoroughly enjoying his egg. He hoped that there were more hidden around the yard because he planned to go look for more.

"A religious holiday pretty much," Ron replied that time.

"What re-gious holiday?" Raziya asked.

"This is your fault," Shego blamed Betty as everyone went into explaining Easter to the children, as best they could anyway. They all pretty much knew it was going to end badly, but they hated leaving the children curious about things.

The children hung on every word as their parents tried to explain Easter to them, but there were some complications. One of the complications happened to be that out of all of the parents half of them were not even Christians and ones that were happened to be less than versed in their religion. In the end, once the kids heard the story, they just had more questions.

"What's a Jesus?" Jayden inquired while shoving the rest of her egg in her mouth. None of that story made sense to her or her friends actually.

"What's a cross?" Bokuden added in.

"How come there was no bunnies in that story?" Mayah asked. She did not see why her mother had been talking about bunnies earlier when no bunnies appeared in the story at all. What did the bunnies have to do with anything if they were not in the explanation?

"Or eggs," Raziya said. She did not understand what hunting eggs had to do with that story at all and her friends were with her on that.

"You just had to do Easter egg hunt, didn't you?" Shego said to Betty in an annoyed tone. "You just had to do it?"

"Oh! Are we Christian?" Mayah inquired enthusiastically while pointing to herself and to her friends.

"Yeah, are we?" Bokuden asked while Jayden and Raziya just nodded to show that they were with their friends.

"You just had to do a damn Easter egg hunt, didn't you?" Shego sighed and now the others were with her in being upset with Betty.

"Oh, yeah, just blame me. We were going to have to talk to them about this at some point in time," Betty pointed out.

"Well, some of us would have liked to have had the conversation with each other first," Monique replied.

"Yeah," Yori concurred.

None of them really practiced any of the religions that they had been raised with, so they really were not planning to have religious conversations with their children. The plan had been to just let the kids formulate their own philosophical and religious beliefs as they went through life. But, now they were on the spot and the kids were so curious.

"Okay, Bo and Razi, you're not Christian," Felix answered, hoping that straight answers might appease them, but he knew better than that.

"We're not?" the two kids asked.

"Are we?" Mayah inquired while pointing at herself and Jayden.

"Like hell," Shego muttered.

"Is that a no?" Jayden asked. Usually when her mommy said "like hell" it was a no, but she did not understand why her Uncle Felix would not just say they all were not Christians if that was the case.

"Mayah is a Baptist," Betty stated since they wanted to know. It only occurred to her after the words left her mouth that she was just opening the forum for new questions, which the kids were never short on.

"What's that?" Mayah inquired.

"Look," Shego said because she was about to put an end to everything. "None of you have religions yet. You're not old enough," she declared. Telling the kids they were not old enough was a surefire way to get them to get off of a subject.

"Okay. When's old enough?" Jayden asked.

"Uh…Twenty years," Shego just threw the number out there. "Now, go look for more eggs," she instructed them and the kids listened, running off for more eggs since they had finished their other ones.

"Why would you tell them that?" Betty asked her friend.

"Because when was the last time anyone here went to a church, temple, mosque, or…Felix, what the hell would you to if you went anywhere?" Shego inquired.

"I don't think there's an agnostic church anywhere," he commented with an amused look on his face.

"Right, but my point is none of us really practice anything, so why start trying to explain to them religions that they're not even going to see in practice? There's no point to it," Shego explained.

No one argued that; most of them did not want to talk about it anyway. They pretty much all felt the same that they just wanted their kids to live good lives and if they happened to find religion on the way, that was fine. From the way the kids acted now, they figured that they had lucked out that they were all sane for the most part, healthy, and they at least listened. They assumed that it would be all right to let the kids find their own paths.

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Next time: Kim gets into some serious trouble after taking Jayden with her on a mission.


	24. Reason Twentyfour: Creepy crawling

I don't own these characters. I don't own the original premise that this saga is based on. I don't own the Care Bears. I don't own Animal Planet either. I do own Jayden.

Reason Twenty-four: Creepy crawling

_We have got to start handling situations just a little better than this._

Kim was in a bit of a situation. A kind of a bad situation at that. She had two emergencies that she needed to handle, which would be no real problem when she got to them. The thing was that she could not find a babysitter at the moment for Jayden. So, she had two options, one of which would probably get her killed if she went with it and was found out. But, there was a chance that she would not be found out and she wanted to help, so she went with the bad decision out of her choices, knowing full well that it was the bad decision.

"Hey, Jade, you wanna go with Mom to the Amazon?" Kim asked the child.

"The real Amazon?" Jayden asked in disbelief. She was sitting on the living room floor, coloring in a coloring book about jungle animals.

"Yes, the real Amazon."

"Do I getta jump out of a plane with you?"

"Yeah, you do."

Jayden grinned widely. "And, and, I could get a frog?" she asked eagerly.

"Yes, you can get a frog if you want."

"I wanna go! I wanna go!" Jayden declared enthusiastically. She had actually wanted to go with her mother on a mission ever since she knew what a mission was, which was not too long ago considering she had only just turned four.

"Okay, but you can't tell Mommy about this," Kim added.

Jayden's face immediately went to an expression of utter confusion. "Why?"

"Because this is a secret," the redhead answered while putting her index finger to her lip to emphasize that it was a secret mission.

"Secret…" Jayden said as if she was awed by that fact. She and her Mom were going on a secret mission. Wow.

"She's going to kill me," Kim muttered to herself. After all, what were the odds of Jayden actually not telling Shego? She was going to be so dead when Shego came in. She knew it and yet, she took Jayden anyway.

It was not a particularly dangerous mission. There were not going to be any bad guys or deadly weapons involved. It just involved her taking Jayden into a tropical rainforest with plenty of places to lose her and animals to eat her. But, as far as Kim was concerned, being in a jungle was just like being in the street and if she could take Jayden into the street, then logically she was comfortable with taking Jayden into a jungle.

--------------

Jayden could not believe everything that she was seeing and she felt almost overwhelmed. The jungle was a fantastic place, like out of a dream. She wanted to touch everything, but she really did not know where to begin. So far, she was having just about the greatest day of her very young life.

First off, she had gotten to jump out of a plane with her Mom. That in itself was extremely cool and she had cheered all the way down, although she almost did bite her tongue when her mother pulled the rip cord on their shared parachute. She had giggled almost endless when they landed, which did not bother her Mom. Kim was happy that Jayden was already enjoying herself.

"Oh! Pretty!" Jayden ran over to a frog. She bet that her Mom would love to have it for her collection of frogs. Kim did have a small collection of frogs tucked away in the house, but she never kept them long, taking them to be studied at the lab or finding places to free them when she was out on missions. She was not allowed to keep animals for long, especially toads and frogs.

"Whoa, Jade, no!" Kim screamed as she grabbed the child and prevented her from touching the amphibian.

"But, it's pretty," the brunette said.

"I know, but that's a poison dart frog, sweetie. Remember what Mom said about pretty colors in nature," Kim replied.

"Right…" Jayden nodded. She did remember now; she had been told that most animals that had pretty colors were poisonous and poisonous was something that was bad. "Sorry, Mom," she apologized.

"It's all right, sweetie. Just be careful what you touch. Mommy will kill me if you get hurt while you're out here," Kim informed the child, even though she was pretty sure that Mommy was going to kill her no matter what.

Jayden nodded again to show that she understood. She took her Mom's hand as they went through the jungle. Kim was just on a retrieval mission. Some unlucky soul had lost some priceless items that had been discovered at a hidden temple. When Kim first got the mission, she had to be sure that the items had not been stolen, but she had been assured by Wade that everything was on the up and up. The items had been gathered legally with the permission of the local government and the country's government, so she was all right with searching for them. She had been given a small perimeter to search. It would seem that everyone was certain that the artifacts were in a specific area, but they just could not find them.

"Mom, can I climb the tree?" Jayden requested while pointing to the tree that was begging to be climbed in her opinion.

"Okay, be careful," Kim replied while releasing the child.

Kim figured that she could easily keep an eye on her daughter while scanning around the place for the lost items. Jayden quickly and effortlessly took the tree. She liked to think that she was an expert tree-climber, as her favorite outside activity was to climb trees, especially the one in their front yard. She made it to a branch and then something caught her eye.

"Mom, can I touch this?" Jayden called while pointing to the current object of her fascination.

Kim looked up to see what Jayden was pointing to and silently praying that it was not a venomous snake, poison frog or toad, or a jungle cat. It would seem that her wish was granted because Jayden was pointing at a boa, which still was not good. It might not be able to poison the child, but it did have those top four rows of hook-like teeth. The good news was that it was tree boa, which Kim knew were strictly nocturnal.

"Jade, leave that snake alone. It's sleeping," Kim replied.

"Sleeping?" the child echoed while inspecting the serpent, which looked very much awake to her. "Mom, the eyes are opened," she reported.

"I know. Remember that snakes sleep with their eyes open?"

"Oh, yeah!" Jayden nodded again. Right, snakes slept with their eyes open because they did not have any eyelids. She remembered now. Her Mom was so smart, she thought.

Kim continued her search for the artifacts, which she hoped were still in the brown bag that she had been told they were originally contained in. She watched Jayden carefully too, making sure the child did not get into any trouble. It took a while for her to do what she had come to do for the mission, but she eventually found everything. She still had one more thing to do while she was there.

Kim released a few of her own animals back into the wild. She had a few snakes that Shego wanted her to get rid of because she had had them in the house too long; any animal that stayed longer than a month in the house had to go and that was pushing it. Once she was certain that she had let her snakes go in a decent area, she was ready to leave.

"Come on, Jade. We need to get home," Kim called to Jayden, who was a few feet away, standing in a mud puddle.

"Mom, can I have this?" Jayden asked eagerly as she waded out of the mud. She was holding a giant toad. Her mother was glad to see that it was not a poisonous toad.

"I don't know if Mommy wants any more toads in the house," Kim answered. She noted a long time ago that while Shego did not mind reptiles, she was rather against toads and frogs. Kim had once commented that Shego was "such a girl" when it came to amphibians, especially toads, which Shego believed to be terribly ugly creatures because of all of the lumps covering their bodies. Shego disliked frogs because they were so slimly and just felt gross in her opinion.

"But, we only got two," Jayden pointed out.

"I know. Okay, we'll bring the toad along and see what Mommy says about you keeping it, all right?"

Jayden nodded. "Mom?"

"Yeah?"

"Can we come back?" the child asked with a hopeful expression in her eyes. She had a giant grin on her face too.

"Sure," Kim answered. How could she say no when Jayden looked so absolutely adorable requesting that they come back to a hot, humid, bug-infested jungle? Hell, she might have to bring Todd with them the next time.

--------------

"Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!" Jayden called as she heard the front door open. She knew that it was her Mommy coming because her Mom was sitting with her in the living room.

Shego braced herself because Jayden was the one that now gave out tackling hugs. She just made herself known before she hit while Kim still preferred it to be an ambush. She watched as Jayden dashed out of the living room and immediately noticed that there was something in the child's hands. She cringed when she saw that it was huge toad.

"Jade, what the fuck is that and where did you get it?" Shego inquired. Her language oddly enough seemed to get worse around her daughter, which only made Jayden's language just as bad.

"A toad. He's Alex," Jayden answered with a proud grin while holding the aforementioned animal up for her mother to see. Yes, she had named the toad Alex, after Alexander the Great; it would seem that like Kim, she named animals after famous historical figures. It would probably disturb a few people that a four-year-old even knew who Alexander the Great was.

"Okay, he's Alex and where did you get him?" Shego asked curiously while making sure that she was out of her child's reach.

"On a secret mission wif Mom," Jayden answered honestly. It would seem that she forgot that she was not supposed to tell her Mommy and that the very definition of "secret" meant as few people as possible were supposed to know about it.

"Princess!" Shego immediately screamed at the top of her lungs. She sounded positively murderous.

"Damn it," Kim muttered as she cringed. She swore that she would have been able to live at least an hour after her wife got home. Apparently, their baby girl could not even keep a secret for a couple of minutes, though.

"Princess, what the fuck?" Shego demanded to know as she stormed into the living room.

"Love, not in front of the baby," Kim said while getting up from her seat and retreating to the far end of the room, just in case her spouse was looking to attack her physically.

"Basement, now," Shego ordered. She could not even hold in her fury at the moment.

Kim gulped and walked out of the living room, having to go passed Shego to exit the area. She could practically feel the rage radiating off of her spouse in vicious, homicidal waves. She went to the basement door and went downstairs, waiting for her punishment to come.

"Mom, where ya goin?" Jayden inquired while running to the basement stairs.

"Mom'll be back in a little while, mini-monster," Shego said while getting the child. She wrapped her arm around Jayden, careful not to touch the repulsive toad that girl was holding.

Shego walked the child back into the living room. She put the television on Animal Planet, knowing that Jayden would watch just about anything on that channel. Jayden did sit down, putting Alex the toad into the container that Kim had provided for the creature. Shego then went to kitchen and grabbed Jayden's favorite snack food, which happened to be plain crackers. She put a stack of crackers down for the child and told her to stay put, not that Jayden needed such an order with Animal Planet being on.

Once Shego was certain that Jayden was good to go, she left the room and marched into the basement where her so-very-dead mate was waiting. Kim was standing on their tumbling mats, which they sparred on when they had the time to. They also used the mats to teach Todd martial arts on and they were starting to teach Jayden too. The redheaded scientist had the decency to appear ashamed and nervous, which had little affect on her livid lover.

"Princess, you did not take the baby out on a fucking mission!" Shego hollered before she even hit the basement.

"I couldn't find a babysitter!" Kim replied in her own defense. She was not so much yelling back, but trying her best to avoid getting murdered.

"What the fuck? Then why didn't you just stay here?" the pale woman demanded to know as she stalked over to her spouse. She stared down at Kim with a look of pure rage blazing in her emerald eyes.

"Okay, okay, okay, baby, I understand why you're mad—"

"Oh, you haven't seen mad!" Shego snarled like a wild animal.

"Babe—"

"No, I don't even want to fucking hear it. You don't ever take my fucking baby out on a mission! You do and this'll end just like it fucking started, with you beaten up in a fucking box on a fucking corner!" Shego threatened her spouse.

The green-skinned woman stormed off while Kim was left sort of speechless. Shego went back upstairs while Kim slid to the floor. She really did understand why Shego was so angry, but she still disliked being yelled at like she had been. It just made her feel like she had done the wrong thing, even though Jayden was fine and the child had had a great time. She also felt like Shego did not trust her to take care of their daughter and that she did not know what was good for Jayden. The worst part was Shego threatening to beat her up and put her out in a box. The whole thing left a hollow feeling inside of her that was spreading rapidly and overwhelming her generally strong will. She drowned in that feeling only moments later.

--------------

Jayden looked around the living room, wondering where her Mom was. She typically watched Animal Planet with her Mom around and she liked that. Her Mom could explain things to her if she misunderstood or her Mom could go into detail if she wanted to know more about something. So, she wanted her Mom to watch with her.

She got up after being told to stay put; she obviously listened as well as her Mom did when orders were dished out by Shego. She went to the basement door and she could hear the yelling that Shego was doing. She wondered what all the hollering was about, but she did not go down to ask because she thought that she would get into trouble since her Mommy would find out that she moved.

She went back to the living room and sat down in the space that she had just left. When she heard the basement door open and shut, she went to go see which parent came up. She saw that it was Shego.

"Mommy," Jayden called.

"Yeah, baby?" Shego answered in a surprisingly gentle tone. She was heading toward the stairs because she wanted to go take a shower to wash away the grime of the day, not to mention ease the tension out of her body brought on thanks to her infuriating wife.

"Watch wif me and Alex?" Jayden requested, pointing into the living room.

"Not right now, baby. I need to take a shower."

Jayden pouted, but her mother did not seem to notice. The stressed-out female trotted upstairs while Jayden strolled back to the living room. She looked around, not wanting to be alone, even if Alex was there. She grabbed Alex and carefully made her way down the basement stairs, making sure to hold onto the banister as she had been told often to do, not that she needed to be told. She still maintained a bit of a fear of walking downstairs on her own.

"Mom?" the four-year-old called.

"Yeah, Jade?" Kim answered while wiping her face. She was crying slightly, but she did not want her daughter to see. Her spouse probably never would have guessed that she was able to hurt the petite hero so much with just words.

"Watch TV wif me?" Jayden requested while staring at her mother, who was still sitting against the wall. She noted how heartbroken her redheaded parent seemed, but she did not know what to make of it.

"Okay," Kim agreed while making a conscious effort to return to her normal mode of being since she was going to be spending time with her daughter. For now, she had no time to be upset and overcome by emotion.

The redhead climbed to her feet and snatched Jayden up, complete with Alex. She went to the living room and curled up on the sofa with her daughter and the toad and they watched Animal Planet. When Shego came back from her shower, she was tempted to join them, but then she saw the toad. The super-powered woman reeled back and decided to go make dinner. Jayden noticed the reaction, but she did not say anything.

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Dinner was rather tense. Kim focused down on her plate, trying her best to make sure that she did not have eye contact with her wife. Shego noticed that Kim was quiet, which was extremely unusual. The redhead was almost always wired until she went to sleep at some point, but right now, she was just sullen.

Jayden picked up where her Mom would have. The child had plenty to talk about considering the day that she had and she was clearly happy with what went on. She even dared to bring Alex to the table. It was not known that the toad was part of the table until Jayden put him up next to her plate.

"What the hell? Jade, what the hell are you doing? Get that damn thing off the table," Shego ordered when she caught sight of the amphibian.

"Why?" Jayden asked. It was her favorite question.

"Because it's a filthy fucking thing!" Shego pointed out the obvious, in her opinion anyway.

"Nah-uh. Uncle Wade scanned him," the little girl reported. Kim had had Wade scan the toad before they even took it from the jungle. She wanted to make sure that the animal was totally safe to be around Jayden.

"I don't give a damn. Go put it in its container," Shego ordered.

Jayden sucked her teeth, which got her scolded by her Mommy. She hopped out of her chair, taking Alex with her. As she went by Shego, the pale woman moved over to avoid being touched by the slimy critter. Jayden noticed the movement, but she did not say anything.

"Fucking toads," the green-skinned officer muttered.

She truly hated amphibians and she noticed that out of the cold-blooded creatures, those were the ones that Jayden seemed attracted to, after snakes of course. At least with Kim, it was almost always lizards, but now, Jayden had the amphibians and Kim was just feeding into that. She did not mind Jayden learning about the creatures, but it bothered her when Kim brought frogs and such home for Jayden and now she was letting the kid collect toads.

"Did you have to let her bring home a toad?" the pale woman inquired, speaking to her mate. She even hated that she knew that it was a toad instead of a frog, just showing that her wife was getting to her too.

Kim did not even bother to answer, which caused Shego to sigh. She was not going to apologize, the older female told herself, no matter how pathetic her mate seemed. There was no way in Hell that she was going to apologize when Kim had been the one that was wrong. So, her little spouse could sit there and pout until judgment day and she was not apologizing.

Jayden returned shortly and climbed back into her seat. She looked back and forth between her mothers, knowing that something was wrong; her parents were just radiating odd feelings in her opinion. She wondered if it was her fault. She guessed that she would ask…maybe when they did not look so upset anyway.

--------------

"Mom, is Mommy gonna read to me tonight too?" Jayden inquired, sitting up in her bed. She was in her pajamas, which were Care Bear pajamas, and she was set to go to sleep. Usually, her Mommy read creepy fairytales first; Shego could find the most chilling versions of classic fairytales ever. Kim did not understand how Jayden could sleep afterwards.

"I'm sure she is," Kim answered. She was probably going to have to leave the room first because Shego did not seem to want to even be around her at the moment, but she was sure that Shego would read to Jayden. After all, Jayden had not done anything wrong.

"Okay. Um…" Jayden hesitated for a moment. "You mad at me, Mom?"

"Of course not, baby. Why would I be mad at you? We had a lot of funny today and everything, right?" Kim pointed out.

"We did," Jayden confirmed. She had had great fun with her Mom as always, but she wanted to be sure. "Um…is Mommy mad at me?"

"No, Mommy's not mad at you. Why would she be?"

Jayden shrugged. She had no idea why her Mommy might be mad her, but she wanted to make sure that she was not. She was going to listen to her Mom since she knew that the redhead never lied. Kim made sure that Jayden was good to go before leaving the room. Once she left, Shego did come in, which caused the four-year-old to grin.

"So, mini-monster, what are we reading tonight?" Shego asked as she sat down by the bed and took a book off the nightstand. She was about to crack the book open when she heard a curious noise. She heard a distinct "ribbet" sound and it was coming from Jayden's pillow. "Jade, where's Alex?" she asked, even though she could guess.

"Right here," Jayden answered honestly as she picked up her pillow and the toad was right there.

"Why the hell is he under you pillow?" Shego asked in a calm tone. She was pretty good with watching her temper around Jayden, knowing that showing anger around their child was not good. It was just so hard to do considering some of the things that she had to put up with.

"I thought he'd like to sleep with me," the child answered honestly.

"Get out of the bed," Shego said, sounding almost tired.

"Why?"

"Just get out of the bed and go in my room. Tell your mom to come here too," Shego stated.

Jayden nodded and eased out of her bed. She walked out of the room thinking that if her Mommy was upset with her before, she certainly was now. She went and got Kim. She returned to the room with the redhead.

"Yeah?" Kim asked.

"Pick the toad up," Shego requested. There was no way in hell that she was touching the slimy, bumpy thing.

Kim shrugged, wondering what toad Shego was talking about. She went deeper into the room to see the creature under Jayden's pillow. Kim was not sure if she wanted to laugh or sigh, so she did not do either. She picked up the toad and headed for the door.

"Mom, whaddaya doin' with Alex?" Jayden asked with great interest.

"I'm just going to put him the room with the other critters. Don't worry, Jade. I'm not going to let him loose or anything. You just can't sleep with him under your pillow like that," Kim replied.

"Yeah." Jayden nodded to show that she understood. She kind of figured that she could not sleep with him because her Mommy was definitely angry with her now.

While Kim and Jayden put the toad somewhere that it would not bother Shego, the green-skinned woman stripped the sheets off of Jayden's bed. She was not going to let the child sleep on a spread that that nasty toad had been on. She went to the linen closet to get some more Care Bear sheets, as those were the only ones that Jayden would sleep on, and another Care Bear blanket. She also changed the pillow case and when it was all said and done with, Jayden was back in a clean, toad-free bed. Shego forgot that she had not read the child a story because of the toad distraction. The super-powered woman left the room and Jayden whimpered. Her Mommy was really mad at her, she concluded.

--------------

The night was not over by far. Kim and Shego did have to share a bedroom after all. The slender scientist was still feeling the affects of being yelled at in such a demeaning manner earlier. Her spouse was still in no mood to apologize. Shego felt very strongly that she had been in the right for once. Kim was the one that was wrong and she needed to just admit it and stop acting like a victim.

"Pumpkin, just cut this shit out," Shego said as she settled into the bed.

"What? What now?" Kim inquired in an exasperated tone. She was sitting at the edge of the bed, contemplating if she even wanted to sleep there that night. She had not done anything to warrant words from her mate in her opinion.

"Look, you were wrong. Stop being such a brat about this," the raven-haired woman stated soundly. God, her wife needed to move on since she was wrong and that was that.

"For your information, I don't think I was wrong," the olive-eyed hero retorted with a bit of an attitude.

"What the fuck? You took our baby on a fucking mission," Shego pointed out with an incredulous expression because of her love's response. She was upset just thinking about such behavior.

"You don't even know what kind of mission it was," the younger woman argued vehemently.

"It was a fucking mission, end of story, in a fucking jungle undoubtedly since she brought back that disgusting fucking toad." That made the case as far as the elder female was concerned.

Kim turned her head sharply to face her spouse. "You know, you don't know everything and you don't know what's best for the baby all the time," she stated heatedly.

"I know not to take her on a fucking mission!" the raven-haired female barked.

"It wasn't a hard mission! All I had to do was get back some lost stuff and she had fun in the jungle, okay! She liked it and nothing happened!" the redhead riposted in a forceful voice.

"Something could've happened!" Shego snapped back.

"If that's the case, let's never take her outside again. Let's never walk her to the park. Damn it, let's not let her leave her room," Kim declared.

"It's not the same thing."

"It is to me. I'm at home in a jungle just like I am on any street. I also kept a close eye on her, like I would do anywhere else on the damn planet. She's not just your daughter!" Kim proclaimed angrily. Maybe that was the bit that hurt the most; that Shego acted like Jayden was not _their_ daughter and that she did not know how to help raise their child. It was like Shego thought that Jayden was only hers and that Kim could not do anything for the girl.

"I never said she was," Shego argued, a bit surprised by all of the emotion coming from her spouse.

"You're acting like it. You told me not to take _your_ daughter out. She's my daughter too and I can take care of her."

"I never said you couldn't."

"You made it seem that way when you just screamed at me. You didn't talk it out or anything. You just screamed at me…" Kim sighed a bit, looking away with sorrow coating her eyes.

Shego sighed right along with her. How in the hell was it that when she was so sure that she was right, she was actually wrong? Damn it, she huffed mentally. She sat up and moved over to the redhead. She wrapped her arms around the slender hero.

"Okay, so we're talking about it right now. Why did you take the baby out on the mission and what kind of mission was it?" Shego inquired, speaking in a gentle tone for the first time that night when it came to her lover.

"I told you, I couldn't find a babysitter. I wouldn't have done this if it was something really dangerous. Besides, I thought she'd have a good time, which she actually did. Now, I knew you'd be mad about it and I was actually hoping you wouldn't find out, but I kept a really good eye on her. I don't want anything to happen to her either," Kim explained.

"I know…" the pale woman muttered. Of course she knew that Kim did not want anything to happen to their baby.

"Now, I am sorry for doing something that I knew would upset you, but she had a really good time and nothing happened. She was great," the redheaded scientist informed her mate.

"Sorry I lost my cool like that. Did I actually threaten to beat you up and put you out on in a box?" Shego asked just to see if her memory was serving her correctly. She had just been so pissed that she said things in the heat of the moment and she was really hoping that was not one of them.

"Yeah," Kim confirmed in a sorrowful tone.

"Damn," Shego mumbled. She could not believe that she had said something so horrible to her little woman. Her embrace on Kim tightened when the statement was affirmed.

"It's okay. I mean, I know you were angry and you were worried about Jade. I just want you to trust me with her. I'm not going to put her in danger willingly," Kim pointed out.

"I know. It's just that she's so little."

"She's in good hands and she's a smart kid. She's not going to do anything that she knows will get her hurt too."

"I know," Shego agreed. Jayden, while crazy as hell just like her friends, was not stupid. She would not do something that she knew would mean that she would get injured.

"I am sorry for doing something that I knew you'd be mad at again," Kim apologized. She really felt that action warranted Shego's wrath.

"It's okay," Shego said and she nuzzled her spouse's neck. She felt horrible now as she realized how she handled the situation. "Just don't do that again," she requested/ordered.

"Take her on a mission or take her in a jungle?" the petite hero inquired curiously.

"Don't take her on a mission or into the jungle, not while she's a midget anyway. Just wait for her to get some weight on her or something, please. I mean, that shit scared the hell out of me when you said you took her on a mission, even though she was all right in the living room. I mean, she's only four, Princess."

"I know. So, how old should she be when I take her back into a jungle because I did promise her I'd take her back," Kim commented.

"What? Love, you can't do that. Don't make her crazy promises because she knows you're going to keep them," Shego said.

"Well, excuse me that our daughter trusts us when we tell her something," Kim remarked with a bit of a teasing smile.

"I don't know how old she should be running around in jungles. This shit isn't in parenting books. How long did you have her there?" the green-skinned woman asked curiously.

"We were just there for like an hour. I mean, I could take her back, but for a few minutes or something if I get a really easy mission. I mean, if I need to just locate something or rescue something, but I can still pay Jade proper attention, is it all right? She had so much fun, Shego. I mean, it was way better than being in some dumb playground," Kim answered.

Shego sighed. "I'd really rather not have our four-year-old daughter run around in a jungle."

"She just climbed a tree and jumped in some mud. I won't take her back anytime soon, though. I'll tell her that she's not old enough," Kim said since she could see that the idea truly bothered Shego.

"Thank you," the pale woman replied with a sigh of relief.

Kim smiled a bit and turned a little to kiss her wife on the lips. It was nice that they were both able to talk about things after they both had done something wrong. Shego really had not meant to blow up the way that she had, but Jayden was their little girl and she got worried about her. She did not want anything to happen to Jayden that could be prevented and Kim understood that because she was the same way. The hero did have to remind herself that her spouse worried very easily about certain things or people, mostly her family, and she really needed to be careful because she did not want to cause Shego any more stress.

--------------

Jayden lay in her bed, clutching her small Cheer Bear plush toy. The darkness of the room, which had never bothered her before, seemed crushing to her now. She had heard her mothers arguing minutes ago. Tears silently fell from her sorrow-filled, olive eyes; she was certain that they were mad at her, especially her Mommy. After all, her Mommy had not even read her a bedtime story.

--------------

Next time: Jayden continues to believe that her Mommy is mad at her until she convinces herself that Shego doesn't love her as much as Kim does. How do the two mothers handle that?


	25. Reason Twentyfive: Emergency situation

I don't own these characters. I don't own the original premise that this saga is based on. I don't own Care Bears.

Reason Twenty-five: Emergency situation

_How is it that something that seems so obvious can be misinterpreted by the most important people?_

Kim was working in the lab at Go University, sitting at a desk with a chewed up blue pen in her hands. She was working on notes for an article that she planned on writing based on her work of breaking down the enzymes in snake venom to aid in medicine and also she was playing with ideas on her antivenin for certain toad poisons. She had no problem with balancing the two things in her head, preferring to multitask when she could anyway.

"Doctor Possible, are you free for a moment?" a voice called to the redhead.

"You need me for something?" Kim answered without looking from her notes.

"I was hoping you could show a new guy around."

"No problem," Kim replied in her usual friendly tone. She liked showing people around when they joined the lab because she remembered when she was new around there and everyone was so nice to her. She wanted the new people to feel as welcomed as everyone made her feel when she had arrived.

The hero tore herself away from her notes and went to go meet the new person. She found herself face to face with a charming, handsome, brown-haired young man. She smiled at him, a friendly expression. He returned the smile with one of his own; his smile was warm, but there did seem to be a little more to it than what the world could see.

"Eric, this Doctor Kim Possible. She'll take good care of you," the scientist informed the new guy before walking off.

"Nice to meet you," Kim said in a polite tone while offering a hand to the new fellow.

"Nice to meet you too," Eric replied with a smirk that went over Kim's head as he shook her hand. He was a well-built young man with a barrel chest and strong jaw. He was also well dressed, especially for someone that was going to be working in the biology lab. He had on white dress shirt with a maroon tie and pants that matched his tie with polished black shoes.

"Well, let me show you around," the redhead offered politely and motioned around the lab.

"Indeed," Eric commented with a smile. It was great that they had got such a wonderful creature to show him around, he thought.

Kim showed Eric around the large laboratory with a bright grin on her face. He noted a ring on her finger, but he did not think anything of it. After all, she looked too young to be married, so he thought that it was just a fashion thing. When Kim was done with showing him around, she returned to her notes and she decided that she was going to take a few frogs home.

The redhead had a habit of borrowing animals from the lab, which she had permission to do. She always brought the specimens back after a few days. She never kept anything longer than a week and they all knew that she took them home to teach her kids. Long ago, she had to show her coworkers her prides and joy, namely Todd and Jayden. She even showed pictures of her cranky spouse. She really did not care if anyone judged her for who she was married to; she loved her family and wanted everyone to know that. Thankfully, the people at her job were very open-minded and just agreed with Kim that she had a fine looking family and very adorable children.

----(New day)

"What the hell!" Shego could be heard screaming through out the entire house. Hell, the neighbors outside probably heard her too. It would not be surprising if the people across town heard her.

Kim did not even bother looking up from the papers that she was looking over. She was sitting in the kitchen, eating a bowl of cereal, and going through the article that she planned on publishing in a science journal. She just wanted to make sure that she got everything in that she wanted and that it made sense.

The redhead still did not look up as her spouse entered the kitchen, appearing rather cross, and walked out the back door that led to the backyard, which was where their daughter was playing with an eight-foot long boa. Jayden looked up when Shego came out. She grinned up at her mother, looking so much like Kim that it was uncanny.

"Put Einstein the hell down," Shego instructed her daughter. Einstein was the snake that Jayden was holding; the child and Kim had just liked naming all of their animals despite the fact that they were not going to be around after a month's time and they liked naming them after famous historical figures.

"Okay…" Jayden agreed and she carefully placed the boa in his box.

"Good."

Shego then grabbed Jayden and tucked the child underneath her arm almost as if the girl was a book. The four-year-old wondered what was going on. Shego did not offer up any explanation and proceeded back into the house. Kim caught sight of her spouse and child as they came back in. She craned an eyebrow.

"Um…Sweetheart, what are you doing with the baby?" Kim asked curiously.

"I'm going to hang her out of a damn window upstairs," Shego answered as if that was the most logical thing to do.

"Okay. Why?" the redhead inquired, still sounding rather curious instead of being alarmed by such a response. It was not unlike her love to say such things when Jayden did something that warranted a punishment or some form of reprimanding. The emerald-eyed woman never acted on such things, of course.

"Do you know our whole tub is full of fucking frogs? Jade, why the fuck are you putting frogs in the tub?" Shego inquired, almost in a pleading tone while looking down at their baby girl with a nearly sorrowful expression.

"Where else am I s'possed to put 'em?" Jayden asked in a baffled tone. It would not make any sense to put the frogs in the living room; there was no water for them to swim in if they were in the living room. The same could be said of any of the bedrooms, the den, and the dining room. The bathroom was the most logical place for amphibians in her opinion and she figured that putting them in a tub with some water in it was even better.

"Somewhere that's not the bathtub!" Shego answered, thinking it was obvious.

"Really? That's where I've been putting mine," Kim mused aloud and she was quite serious.

Shego's face practically hit the floor in defeat. She just did not know what to do. She sighed, conceding the battle, and walked over to Kim. She dropped Jayden into Kim's lap and then she petted both of their heads.

"Oh, yeah, this is definitely your daughter," Shego commented and she walked off.

"Did I do sum-fin bad?" Jayden asked the redhead. There was a curious and confused expression on her face because it seemed like she had done something wrong, but she did not know what it was.

"No, baby. You know how Mommy feels about frogs, though. So, she was probably just freaked about the frogs in the tub. How many do you have in there anyway?" Kim asked curiously.

"Like ten or fifteen," the child answered with a shrug. She was giving a rough estimate because she had not bothered to count them.

"That's not that many," Kim commented. She had done way more than that one night and Shego had actually gone into the bathroom, stepped into the tub, and was totally ambushed by a huge gang of frogs and toads. Needless to say, that evening did not go too well after that.

"I know! I was gonna put 'em back after I got done with Einstein."

"Well, let's go put Einstein back and then gather up all of the frogs so Mommy can go into the bathroom."

Jayden nodded and the two got up to go retrieve their boa from outside. They then went upstairs to collect the frogs that were in the bathtub. As they put the frogs back into their containers, Jayden turned to Kim.

"Mom…" the child said in a tone that did nothing to prepare her redheaded parent for what she was going to say next.

"Yes?" Kim answered.

"Does Mommy love me less than you cuz I don't look like her?" Jayden asked curiously.

The question caused Kim to whip around and stare at the girl as if her head had fallen off. Jayden did not know what her mother's face meant, though. She just wanted an answer to her question. She wanted to know why her Mommy seemed to love her less than her Mom. She was pretty sure that it was because she did not look like Shego; it was the first thing that she had come up with.

"Jade, sweetie, Mommy loves you just the same as I do," Kim answered, doing her best not to sound insistent, so her child was inclined to believe her without her seeming to force the truth on Jayden.

"Are ya sure? I think she doesn't love me so much because I don't look like her at all," Jayden said. It was the most logical thing that she could come up with if there was something wrong with her and she did think that there was something wrong with her. After all, her Mommy was always mad at her and sometimes her Mommy did not read her a bedtime story and her Mommy did not watch television as much with her as her Mom did and her Mommy did not play with her as much as her Mom did. Her Mommy did not even like frogs and she bet that it was her fault.

"Jade, Mommy loves you very much," Kim now insisted. God, Shego loved Jayden as much as a person could love someone, so she did not know where Jayden got some crazy idea that Shego did not love her.

"But, she's always so mad…" Jayden pointed out in a bit of an unsure voice. Her Mommy was always mad and she swore that anger was directed toward her.

"Yeah, but she's usually mad at her job or me," Kim immediately countered. She still got on Shego's nerves from time to time over little things, like wanting pasta for dinner and having Jayden backing her on that now or bringing a bunch of animals home, but Shego was almost never upset with Jayden in a serious manner. If the child did do something that Shego disagreed with, Shego typically pretended like she was going to do something drastic and ended up just getting Jayden to explain herself. Once she got a satisfying explanation for why their daughter did something outrageous, Shego typically then explained to Jayden why she should not do such a thing and then let their girl go about her business.

"I think she's mad at me," Jayden admitted, sounding rather sorrowful over what she believed to be a solid fact.

"Baby, Shego is never mad at you."

"But, I look different…"

"So?"

"I think you love me more cuz I look like you," Jayden commented. She noticed that she looked very much like Kim, except with brown hair. She often wondered why she did not look like both of her mothers because she thought that it would make her parents love her equally.

"Looks have nothing to do with it, Jade."

"But, Mommy loves Smiley a lot and he looks like her," Jayden said. Shego was pale and Todd was pale and to her, that was enough looking alike. While Todd did get yelled at a lot by Shego, in fact he was starting to rival Kim in that area for various reasons, she still spent a lot time with Todd, which Jayden noticed.

"But, Mommy loves you too," Kim tried to assure her daughter.

"She loves Smiley more."

"No, she doesn't. We love you both the same."

"Then how come Mommy never watches TV wif us? Or how come Mommy doesn't do puzzles wif us? Or how come Mommy sometimes forgets to read to me? Or how come Mommy hates frogs so much?"

Kim felt that most of those were valid questions, but she did not understand how they caused Jayden to think that Shego loved her less because she did not look like Shego. She gathered that she was not meant to totally understand the mind of a four-year-old, especially one that thought her mother hated frogs because of her. What Kim did know was that Jayden had a very false image in her head and there was only one person that could correct that. She would get to that person after they got the frogs all cleaned up.

Kim did try to talk to Shego, but it turned out that her green-skinned spouse was in a hurry. The pale woman had just gotten an emergency call from work and she had dash out to go save the city from giant, mutant monsters again. She rushed off, telling Kim that they could talk later and that she hated science. Kim sighed, believing that the subject was not something that they should put off, but that did not stop Shego from running out of the house and not really listening to anything that the redhead said.

"Damn it," Kim muttered. She hated it when Shego got emergency calls on what was supposed to be their day off. Only the kids should be rushing around on their day off, which Todd was. He had gone to play football with some friends at the park.

--------------

When Shego came in, all she wanted to do was take a shower and get the grim of the assignment off of her. So, while Kim was trying to talk to her, she headed for the bathroom, hoping that all of the slimy critters that had been in it earlier were gone so that she could take a relaxing, hot shower. Kim was getting annoyed by Shego continuously blowing her off when they had a serious problem on their hands.

"Shego!" Kim shouted and she grabbed her wife by the hand before Shego entered the bathroom.

"What? I want to take a shower. I just had to battle with three funky ass monsters," the pale woman informed her spouse in an irritated tone.

"You're not listening to me," the olive-eyed scientist pointed out.

"I'll listen once I get out of the shower."

"You have to listen now. Jade doesn't think you love her as much as I do," Kim told the older woman. She sort of blurted it out because Shego was still trying to go into the bathroom.

Shego was taken back by that statement. Why would Jayden think such a thing? Of course she loved that Jayden; that was her baby girl. Where would she get such a stupid idea from? She knew that Kim and Todd would never plant such a bug in the baby's ear. So, where would she get that from?

"What do you mean?" Shego found herself asking. She was so shocked that it was all she could manage. Somehow, she considered that she might be taking the statement the wrong way.

"I mean, the baby actually thinks I love her more than you do. You need to talk to her," Kim replied.

Shego nodded because she definitely needed to talk to Jayden and she needed to do it now. Thanks to that news, she did not even recall what she was going to do before Kim started talking. She made a turn and went right to Jayden's room, which was where the child was. Jayden was sitting on her floor, which was covered in pink carpet to match her blush pink walls, coloring in one of her many Care Bear coloring books.

"Jade, come here for a second," Shego said as she sat down in a chair that was by the window. It was a wooden, lime green chair that had Good Luck Bear on it; one of Jayden's favorite Care Bears.

"Yeah, Mommy?" Jayden replied as she put down her crayons and obeyed her mother immediately.

Jayden walked over to Shego, who scooped the child up into her arms. She sat Jayden down on her lap. She brushed back Jayden's mane of brown hair, sighing as she did so. She sounded rather sad; her heart was in her knees right now considering the news that she had just heard.

"Mom told me you told her something weird today," the emerald-eyed officer said.

"I tell Mom stuff all the time," Jayden pointed out, not being a smart-aleck, but telling the truth.

"I know you do, but today you told Mom something really weird. You told Mom that you think she loves you more than I do," Shego stated.

"She does, doesn't she?" the child asked curiously. Maybe that was how things were supposed to be. Her Mom loved her more while her Mommy loved her brother more, although it did not seem to be that way when it came to her brother. They seemed to love her big brother equally.

"No, she doesn't, you silly little monster. I love you just as much as your Mom does," the green-skinned woman tried to assure the four-year-old.

"Nah-uh. I think Mom loves me more because I look like her and that's why she does things wif me. Since I don't look like you, you don't do things wif me," Jayden reasoned. She sounded rather sad as she laid out her logic, obviously disliking the conclusion that she had come to. She obviously wished that her Mommy loved her just the same as her Mom.

"Baby, looks have nothing to do with anything and I do things with you. I read to you—" Shego tried to list the activities, but she was cut off.

"You don't sometimes."

"I don't?" Shego said in shock, as if it was news to her. It did not register to her mind that on a couple of occasions she had forgotten to read to the child and Jayden took note of those times.

"Sometimes you don't," the child stated rather bluntly for someone that was only four.

"Well, if that's the case, you feel free to come and get Mommy and hit her with a damn book until she does read to you," Shego commented. She did not want to miss out on the few activities that she did do with Jayden.

"You don't watch TV wif me like you do wif Mom and Smiley," Jayden pointed out.

"Well, I don't know as much about animals as you and Mom do, but I'll start watching more often," the pale woman promised. She really did not watch as much television with Jayden as she did with Kim or with Smiley because Jayden mostly watched Animal Planet and she did not know much about animals. She did not have nearly as much of an interest in animals as her spouse and children did, but she supposed that she would definitely have to learn better and start watching things with their baby much more often.

"You don't do puzzles with me," Jayden continued.

"I know I don't. Mom does puzzles with you, but who colors with you?" Shego inquired.

The child looked like she had a revelation. "You do!" she answered with a happy grin.

"Damn right I do."

"But, how come you don't like frogs then?" Jayden asked and the question threw her mother off totally.

"I don't like frogs because they're slimy, nasty, filthy creatures," the raven-haired female stated plainly.

"But, I like frogs."

"I know you do. Your Mom likes frogs too."

"Mommy, if you love me just the same as Mom, how come you're always mad at me?" Jayden asked curiously. It seemed to her that her Mom was almost never upset with her, but her Mommy seemed to forever be upset with her.

"I'm not always mad at you. When the hell was I ever mad at you?" Shego asked in a rather gentle tone considering her choice of words.

"This morning."

"I wasn't mad. I was just bothered that there were frogs in the bathroom. I'd like it if you didn't put them in the bathroom anymore and I'm going to tell your Mom the same thing," Shego answered.

"Where we s'pposed to put 'em then?" the little girl asked in a very bewildered tone. The bathroom was the perfect place to keep frogs from what she could tell, especially since her Mom kept them there.

"Leave them in their boxes. You and your Mom need to stop thinking every damn creature in this fucking house needs to be out of the cage. We got enough to deal with since there's two monsters and a gremlin walking around here," Shego remarked.

"So…you do love me?"

"You know I do. You're my little monster," Shego said and she hugged the child tightly, enough for her daughter to know that she was telling the stone-cold truth.

"But…if you love me, how come I don't look like you?" Jayden asked. The question stemmed from her tying the love of a parent to looking like the parent. It was still there despite the talk that had just gone down and the fact that she now knew that her Mommy loved her just as much as her Mom did.

"You really want to look like me?" Shego asked.

Jayden nodded vigorously. "Yes." She would love to look like her Mommy as well her Mom.

"Okay. We'll fix that problem soon enough then."

Jayden smiled. "Can you color with me?" she requested.

"You know I can," Shego answered with a smile.

Jayden hopped off of Shego's lap and went back to her coloring book on the floor. Shego joined her. The green-skinned woman was glad that they had nipped that problem in the bud while she was young. She would have hated for Jayden to grow up thinking that she did not love the child as much as Kim did. But, now she wondered if Kim thought the same thing; it was always something that was on her mind just underneath everything. She often tried to ignore it, thinking it was silly, but now because of what just happened with their daughter, it did not seem nearly as silly.

--------------

Shego entered the bedroom while making sure most of the house lights were out; it was most because they still left the upstairs' hall light on in case Jayden was in a wandering mood. They did not want the girl to end up to close to the stairs and end up falling down because of the darkness. They did shut their bedroom door all the way now, though. They wanted Jayden to get into the habit of knocking on their door to come in; they also wanted Todd to get into the habit of waiting for someone to tell him to come in before he just entered the room.

"Princess, are you still going over that article?" Shego inquired as she noticed that Kim was in bed, looking through papers, just as she had been doing all day.

"I just want to make sure its perfect. I mean, everyone's always telling me I don't publish enough stuff, so now that I've finally got something going, I want to make sure it's worth reading. I don't want everyone to think I'm just some hack scientist," Kim explained.

"There are hack scientists?" the older woman asked with a laugh.

"Yes, there are," Kim insisted.

"I'm sure there are," the moss-hued female replied, still laughing, as she crawled into bed. "Why don't you put it away? I'm sure it's perfect as it is and everyone's going to shout your genius to the mountains when they read it," she commented.

"I don't care about them shouting my genius to the mountains. I just want to make sure the stupid thing is readable," the redheaded hero replied.

"Well, I know you've read it eight times since I've been home and I know you haven't changed anything in it, so it must be readable. How about putting it away?" Shego suggested. She did think that Kim was putting more energy than necessary into the article, especially since it was not like it was the first thing that the redhead ever published. Kim did have hundreds of photos floating around in nature magazines, a couple of children's books about cold-blooded creatures under her belt, and a few journal articles. It was very unlikely that someone was going to pick up the new article and suddenly think that the scientist was an idiot and had no clue as to what she was talking about.

"Why? You got something better in mind?" Kim asked with a hopeful look in her eyes, but a scandalous smirk on her face.

"Actually, I want to talk to you about something," Shego answered.

"Aw," Kim pouted. "Talking's no fun in bed."

"I know. We'll talk and if there's time, we'll do something else," the pale woman offered with a small, sly-looking smile.

Kim grinned; Shego doubted that her wife was ever going to change since that expression had been the same since the first time they met. The elfish adventurer put her work away and turned her attention directly to Shego. The raven-haired woman gathered her smaller wife up in her arms before anything. She pressed Kim against her, which the petite hero liked. Kim sighed, a content sound, and wrapped her arms around her spouse.

"Pumpkin, I've been wondering for a long time…maybe even worrying…but, do you think I love Jade less than you?" Shego asked. Her voice was a bit distant because she was afraid of the answer that might come her way.

Kim pulled away from her lover slightly, just to be able to look Shego in the eye. She could see that the pale woman meant that question. She was serious. Kim then laughed a little bit. She could not believe that her mate was serious.

"I never, ever doubt your love for our daughter. She's our daughter, Shego," Kim replied. She thought it was ridiculous that the love of her life was even wasting time thinking, worrying, about such things.

Shego smiled a bit. "Why do you always have so much faith in me?" she asked in an amused tone.

"If you can't have faith in a woman that used to be your mistress, who can you have faith in?" Kim remarked.

The green-skinned woman laughed and hugged her lover tighter than what she had been doing already. She nuzzled her face in Kim's hair and sighed contently. They had come a long way, she told herself, but one thing remained the same, Kim still made her so happy. She loved the smaller female so much.

"When was the last time I washed your hair?" Shego asked curiously, thinking about that because she was snuggled into that soft red mane.

"A long time ago," the adventurer answered.

"We need to do that again sometime."

"Oh, you want me to be a pet again?" the olive-eyed scientist asked in a bit of a teasing tone. She arched herself against her spouse. "I don't think you'd be able to pay me the proper attention now."

"I could always make time for my mischievous little munchkin," Shego practically purred as she began caressing her mate's thigh.

"I'd be ever so grateful if you did."

"But, if you want a treat, you know you have to do tricks first."

Kim laughed. "Would my mistress like me to sit up or maybe fetch or how about I roll over and play dead?" she offered.

"I'd mostly like you to beg," Shego remarked and the next thing Kim knew, she was on her back with Shego looming over her.

"I kind of figured that. But, what if I did that trick with my tongue instead?" the redhead proposed with a lecherous look that certainly went with the mentioning of that little "trick."

"Nope. You're going to lay here and beg, mostly for me to not stop."

"You should keep in mind that I'm a very naughty pet," Kim commented with a smirk.

"And you should keep in mind that naughty pets get punished," Shego countered with a smirk of her own.

----(New day)

"Mommy, are you sure Mom's not going to mind about this?" Jayden asked as she and Shego wandered through the aisles of the local drug store. The child was making sure to hold her mother's hand, as she knew that she was always supposed to hold the hand of someone when she was outside. She was happy with what they were going to do, even though she thought that Kim might not like it.

"Mom's not going to mind. Don't worry about it," Shego replied. She had left work early to scoop Jayden up from Monique's; Raziya had not been very happy that her playmate had left earlier than usual.

"It'll be a nice surprise, huh?" Jayden asked with a grin. She was rather proud that she had thought of it, although it was more her Mommy's plan than her own.

"Yeah, it'll be a great surprise," Shego assured her daughter. Maybe she would add to the surprise for both her wife and child. She was pretty sure that the idea that she had just gotten would tickle both her spouse and their daughter and that was enough to go through with it. But, first, she and Jayden had work to do.

--------------

Kim was going over her notes again. She had already gotten half a dozen people to read and review her work and they all approved of the article, yet she was rereading it again. She knew that she really just needed to let it go and call it a day, but she really wanted it to be perfect. She supposed that she would not have such a problem if she published her work more often.

She failed to notice that she was being eyed by a colleague. Eric had been watching Kim for a few minutes. He had decided his first few minutes at the lab that she was gorgeous. Now, he was just trying to figure out how to approach her for a date. It was a little intimidating with her being a holder of more than one doctorate and he was just a candidate.

"She's already taken, dude," Doctor Big Mike informed Eric, who could not believe that the people in the department actually called the man "Doctor Big Mike." It seemed very weird and rather inappropriate to him.

"Taken?" Eric echoed as if he did not understand what the term meant.

"You're eyeing little Doctor Kimmie, aren't you?" Big Mike asked, even though it was clear to anyone with eyes what the smaller guy was doing.

"I'm not eyeing her," Eric defended himself.

"That's good. She's taken," Big Mike said again.

"Taken? I've never heard her say anything about a boyfriend," Eric replied, as if that was the best argument anyone could make.

"Yeah, because we've all talked about everything possible in the two weeks that you've been here," Big Mike remarked. He did not like Eric much because he had noticed the young man watching Kim rather closely while the redheaded scientist was so focused on her already perfect article. The giant felt a little bit of protectiveness for Kim since they worked together and had gone to high school together, which was why he did not like Eric.

"She hasn't said anything about a boyfriend," Eric repeated soundly.

"She doesn't have to say anything. Besides, she doesn't have a boyfriend. She's married," Big Mike said to put an end to the discussion, and hopefully get the shorter fellow to stop acting like a lecher, and then he walked off. He had things to tend to around the lab, not to mention he had class in a few minutes. He was teaching now at the university and he was willing to bet that it was only a matter of time before Kim was doing the same since the biology department was trying to get more than one herpetology course going. He felt that the only reason he had gotten a teaching job ahead of her was because he was an expert in constrictors while she was an expert in venomous snakes, among other things, and experts in constrictors were harder to find than experts in venomous snakes. So, in that regard, he was a commodity because of his expertise.

Eric eyed Kim now that he was alone again. She was married? She looked way too young to be married, he thought. He did not know Kim's exact age, but just from looking at her, he thought that she could only be in her early twenties; he was wrong, of course. Kim just appeared young and he was judging a book by the cover. He decided that he was going to go talk to her.

"Hey, Kim," Eric said, taking full advantage of how informal everyone was around the lab. He walked over to her and stood to her right.

"Oh, hey," Kim answered almost absently as she turned to see him.

"What's this you've been working on?" he asked curiously, even though he knew since everyone around the lab was talking about her article.

Everyone was going on about it because Kim was doing both excellent lab work and field work, both of which were addressed in her article. She had already discovered two new species of snakes, half-a-dozen new frog species in her travels, she was working on and making a lot of progress in antitoxins for several toad poisons, and she was making headway in using snake venom for human aliments. She was making Go University's biology department world famous, which was why several people assumed that she was going to end up with a class to teach sooner or later. They wished that she would just publish the article and stop fretting over it.

"My article," Kim answered. She really just needed to send it in, she told herself. She had been fiddling with it for a month and had not changed anything in it, so she really just needed to let it go, which her spouse stated every time that she saw Kim with those notes.

"You're writing an article? That's interesting," he said, leaning down a bit more to her level.

"I guess," she muttered, more into her notes than whatever was coming out of Eric's mouth.

"Maybe you can tell me about it," he proposed.

Kim turned to him and looked at him. Her mind commented that maybe if she explained it out loud that would be better than constantly reading it over and over again. If she explained it out loud, she would see that it all made sense and she would feel much better about sending it in. It was just crazy enough to work, she thought. So, she started talking and the more she went on about it, the more she realized that it did make sense. She started to smile as she spoke because of that.

--------------

Shego entered the place that Kim worked for the first time. She had never been up there because Kim respected her job space for the most part, so she returned the favor, but she was going to bend that rule just one time because she and Jayden had a surprise for Kim. She noted that everyone in the lab was rather friendly and she could see why Kim would be able to get away with as much as she in such a relaxed work environment. Whenever she asked where Doctor Possible was, people would point her in the right direction and inform her that the redhead was "in the back, sulking about her brilliant article."

"She's going to let that thing drive her crazier than she already is," Shego muttered as she and Jayden finally got to the back of the lab where Kim was supposed to be alone with her article. Instead, she was alone with some guy and smiling at she spoke rather enthusiastically to him. Shego frowned; what the hell was going on?

--------------

Next time: Shego finds out just what the hell is going on and does something about it.


	26. Reason Twentysix: Discovery

I don't own these characters. I don't own the original premise behind this saga. I don't own Care Bears. I do own Jayden, Todd, and the rest of their little crew.

Reason Twenty-six: Discovery

_It's an amazing thing to be the most interesting person in someone's life._

Shego could not believe what she was seeing. Her Princess was talking to some guy and smiling brightly all the way through the conversation. It did not help that the guy was leaning down in a particular way that bothered Shego; it was an "I'm interested in this girl" kind of lean. He probably did not even know what Kim was talking about, Shego thought.

"Mom!" Jayden called with a huge, joyful, showing-all-of-her-teeth smile on her face and she dashed over to Kim.

"Mini-monster!" Kim grinned widely as she turned around to see her daughter charging over to her. She opened her arms just in time for the child to jump on her; Jayden had some legs on her, she thought.

Eric, the guy that Kim had been speaking with, was a bit taken back by the child's sudden appearance. Not to mention the fact that she had called Kim "mom" after he had taken most of his time working at the lab convincing himself that Kim was not old enough to be married. Now, he had to be confronted with the fact that she was old enough to be the mother of a toddler, from what he could tell anyway.

"Whoa, Jade, what happened to your hair?" Kim asked curiously, still smiling. The child had gone from having sandy brown hair to sporting a mane of pure black.

"Mommy did it!" Jayden proclaimed with insane delight while grabbing Kim's hand and making her rub the top of her newly dyed hair.

"Mommy?" Kim echoed as if she was a bit confused and then she looked in the direction that Jayden ran from to see her spouse standing there. Kim's face lit up like someone flipped a switch in her.

The redhead was overjoyed because Shego had never come up to her job before. She was about to get up and rush over to Shego, but Jayden called attention back to herself. Kim looked down at the child.

"I look like Mommy now too, don't I?" Jayden asked in a hopeful tone.

"Yes, you do," Kim confirmed and she kissed the girl's forehead as if that made her words even more true.

Jayden grinned, happy for that affirmation. The child did look like Shego now because she was not just sporting Shego's hair color, but her hair style too and her hair was about the same length as her Mommy's, proportionately speaking. Kim then turned her attention back to Shego, who was now approaching the scene.

Shego kept her eye on Eric, who was still there for whatever reason; the glint in her emerald orbs was clearly one of intense dislike toward him. He did not look like belonged in a lab in her opinion. He looked more like an athlete than a nerd, but then again, her wife was both, but she was not looking to excuse Eric. After all, it looked very much like he was trying to kick game to her mate. It did not help matters that her spouse seemed to be enjoying his company. She might have to breathe fire on someone in a moment.

"Hey, Princess," Shego greeted the redhead while leaning down to give her a kiss too.

Kim thought that the public display was a little odd, but she was not about to say anything about it. There was not anyone really around anyway; she had clearly forgotten that Eric was standing right behind her. Besides, most of the lab knew that she was married to a woman anyway, so she doubted that they would be offended if they saw her engaged in a romantic embrace with her spouse.

Eric could not believe his eyes. He was watching a couple of women, one of whom he was attracted to, kiss right in front of him; not just a peck on the lips either, but a full-blown, open mouth kiss. Wait, did that mean that Kim was taken by the pasty green woman in front of him? He could not believe it.

"So, who's your friend?" Shego asked Kim as she pulled away after almost a minute of kissing.

"Friend?" Kim asked in a dazed tone. She wanted Shego to come to her job more often if it meant that she would be greeted with such luscious, mind-numbing kisses.

Shego nodded in Eric's direction. Kim turned around and made a face that let everyone present know she actually forgot that he was there. Shego was rather pleased with that fact while Eric was insulted.

"Oh, this is Eric. Eric, this is my wife, Shego and our daughter Jade," Kim introduced the pair. Jayden was not paying anyone any mind, though; she was too busy looking around at everything that she could see.

"Nice to meet you," Eric said rather politely while extending his hand.

"I'm sure it is," Shego replied while turning away from him and not bothering to shake his hand, especially since she could tell that he was faking his politeness. She focused back on her petite spouse and their child, who was going through Kim's notes and putting them out of order. "So, Jade and I came by to come get you and celebrate her new look by going out."

"Going out? Where?" Kim asked.

"That little kid arcade thing," Shego answered in a bored tone. She did not know what the place was called, even though they had taken Jayden there a number of times with all of her friends. Betty had even threatened to shoot the electronic animal band there once; it had been a stressful day and the annoying songs had not been helping.

"Wait," Jayden said as if she just had a realization. She held her hands up and looked back and forth between her mothers before continuing. "Mom, this is where all the snakes and stuff are, right?" she asked as if that was the most important question in the world.

"Yes," Kim answered.

"I wanna see 'em!" Jayden declared with a bright smile.

"You have to ask Mommy," Kim said because she knew that the snakes were one of those things that Shego might object to their daughter being around.

"Please, Mommy?" Jayden requested with an adorable pout.

Shego rolled her eyes. "These snakes in cages?" she asked her spouse.

"Of course," Kim answered. As if they just let dozens of venomous snakes wander the lab at their own leisure.

"Fine, but don't take any out for her to touch or anything like that," Shego ordered.

Kim nodded and got up from her seat. She wandered off with Jayden while Shego turned her attention to Eric. She frowned at him and the look in her eyes made him gulp. It was like he had come face to face with the devil.

"Let's get one thing straight, pal. Kimmie isn't on the market. Stay the fuck away from her if you know what's good for you. Is that understood?" Shego snarled.

"You don't own her," Eric said in his own defense.

"Wrong answer," she replied and she cut the small distance between them in the blink of an eye, pushing Kim's chair off to the other side of the room. She grabbed him by the collar and got his face, scowling like an angry wolf. She pressed her claws into his cheek.

"Is that supposed to scare me?" he inquired. His voice did not waver, but his heart was beating a bit faster. She could practically hear it pounding in his thick chest.

"No, the plasma does that," she answered and flared her powers up in the hand against his face. She made sure not to burn him, but give off enough heat to make him sweat. "Now, unless you want to be burned beyond recognition, I suggest you stay the fuck away from my wife. Is that clear?" she asked in a low, menacing tone that let him know she meant business.

"Crystal," he answered because he had never witness such a display of power. The fact that she had come at him in a way that he could tell she could push him through the wall if the urge came over helped him in his response that time. The grip that she was holding him with also assisted in the decision to answer her favorably.

"Good," she stated with the smirk of a demon.

She shoved him away, forcing him to hit the back wall; he was going to have a large bruise later on from that. She did not even bother to look at him as he crashed to the floor and she walked off. She went to go find her spouse and daughter, which she did easily. Jayden's amazed gasps were a dead giveaway to their position.

"Mommy, these snakes are fucking awesome!" Jayden declared when she noticed Shego coming. Kim sighed because of the language that the four-year-old used. Shego only laughed because she knew that Kim hated it when Jayden used swear words, but they seemed to be a part of the child's growing vocabulary and she knew they were not going anywhere.

--------------

Shego, Kim, and Jayden were all curled up on the sofa. They had been watching a movie, but the movie was over and Jayden was sleeping anyway, wrapped tightly in pink Care Bear blanket. She was resting on Kim, who was lying on Shego. Shego was busying herself with caressing Kim and looking for something else that they could watch before they went to bed themselves.

"Hey, Pumpkin," the pale woman said.

"Yeah?" the scientist replied while suppressing a yawn.

"I want you to watch out for that Eric guy at your job."

"Why?"

"What do you mean why? He's got the hots for you, that's why," Shego pointed out.

"I thought as much," Kim commented.

"You thought as much?" Shego asked in a surprised tone. She would have thought that something like that would have gone by her mega-monster, especially with the way Kim was obsessing over her article, which Shego had actually finally talked her into sending off.

"Well, he's always around me or looking at me or something like that. I didn't say anything about it because I thought I might be wrong. I mean, he didn't ask me out or anything like that, so I thought I might be looking at it too deeply," the redhead explained.

"Okay, well, don't let him put any moves on you," Shego said.

"Yes, sir," Kim replied and she saluted just to be silly.

Shego smiled a bit. "I'm serious. I mean, I know you might not be hard on him if he does do something and then I'm going to have to go up there and break his arms and legs and everyone's going to swear I'm overreacting."

"You would be if you did all that," the hero commented.

"Well, that's what I'm going to do if he tries to make a move on you," Shego warned her spouse.

"Okay, I'll tell him tomorrow not to do anything stupid. You've got enough stress in your life after all," Kim remarked with a smile.

"Well, it's a good thing I've got such a great stress reliever, huh?" Shego quipped while leaning down to kiss her mate on the lips.

Kim returned the show of affection and as things began to heat up, they both had the presence of mind to put Jayden in her bed before going any further. They both made sure that Jayden was properly set up in bed with her covers over her and Cheer Bear plush toy resting on the pillow next to her. They both stared down at their little girl for a few seconds, just enjoying the sight of her.

"What do you think of the baby's new look?" Shego asked, genuinely curious.

"I think it suits her, especially since she has your mouth anyway. Why not your hair too?" Kim remarked.

Shego laughed a bit. "Don't let it get you so bent out of shape. At least her first word wasn't 'fuck' or something like that."

"That was your first word, wasn't it?" Kim asked in an interested tone.

"According to my mother it was and best of all, she claims I said to my grandmother."

"It suits you," the redhead said with a laugh, even though she suspected that Isabel had something to do with Shego having such a foul mouth at a young age. They then proceeded to their room to finish what they started on the couch.

----(Next day)

Kim entered the lab and the first thing on her mind was finding Eric. She just wanted to get that out of the way before anything else, especially since she did not have her article to worry about anymore. He was kind of hard to find because she did not really know what he did around the place, but she found him doing her favorite old job. He was feeding the snakes.

"Hey, Eric," Kim said as she entered the room where they held all of the snakes.

"Oh, hey, Kim," he replied with a charming smile as he turned to face her.

The redhead laughed to herself a bit; it would be kind of hard for her to miss that he was attracted to her with the way that he behaved. She was bit surprised that he was still acting so obvious after she had introduced him to her wife and daughter just yesterday. She was also surprised that Shego had not tried to scare the snot out of him yesterday since the green-skinned female had noticed that he was attracted to her; apparently, Shego had not informed her about the "little pep talk" that she had with Eric.

"I need to talk to you," Kim said.

"I was planning on talking to you too," he commented. He finished up with the one snake that he was feeding and turned his complete attention to her. "I was wondering if maybe you'd like to help me with my dissertation," he said. He thought that it would be a good way to get her to at least go out with him, even if it was not going to be a real date. It seemed like a safe way to be out with her.

"No, I don't think I can do that. Look, Eric, I'm sure you're a great guy and everything, but I'm not just married, I'm _happily_ married. I love my wife in a way that you probably can't even imagine, so I'd appreciate you making an effort in keeping the little relationship that we have a working one," she stated.

"Well, wouldn't that mean we have to create a little relationship for me to keep it working?" he asked with a smirk.

Kim let out a dry laugh, not at all amused by him. "That's not clever and I don't appreciate it. I'm not interested in you and I expect you to act in a professional manner around me, which includes not pretending to care about my opinion on your dissertation," she replied.

"Okay, okay, okay," he said with his hands up in a position as if saying that he gave up.

"I'm very serious about this," Kim informed him in a tone that no one around her job would have been used to. She was typically friendly and jovial around the lab, but at the moment, she sounded the exact opposite. Her tone itself was a threat to him to not try to act on his attraction to her. She supposed that she was going to have to wait and see if that was enough for him.

Eric nodded to show that he understood and as Kim turned to leave he swallowed down a gulp. She was actually pretty frightening when she was serious like that, he noted. She and her spouse were rather scary individuals and he had to ask himself if he wanted to tempt fate that badly.

He was smart guy, so he decided to weigh his options before proceeding in life. If he continued to show in interest in Kim, she or her wife (he was leaning toward her wife) would probably kill him. Even if he did catch Kim, he did have to work with her and he doubted that working with a girlfriend would be a good thing. Besides, everyone around the lab knew that she was married and if they started going out then the whole lab would know that he was breaking up a marriage, which would not be good. No, pursuing Kim was not in his best interest, he figured.

----(New day)

Shego was lying on the sofa in the living room and Kim was resting on top of her. They were taking a well-deserved nap; hey, anybody that would watch Todd, Jayden, Mayah, Bokuden, Raziya, and Aztek for a whole day really deserved whatever they wanted. And right now, the couple just wanted some sleep.

The kids had been the expected whirlwinds in the house, playing all kinds of pretend games while they were all together. The best thing (depending on who was asked) was when they played house because Mayah managed to send Todd running for his life out of the backdoor when she declared that he was playing and he was her husband. Todd had obviously not been for that idea and made a temporary getaway, having the nerve to hop the fence in the backyard to show that he would not be back for a while.

Along with playing "house," the kids had played "ninja school," which was game that Bokuden introduced. It stemmed from the fact that he had recently visited his mother's old school and was impressed to find out that both of his parents were for-real ninjas. They tended to break up into two teams and just have a ninja clan war.

There was also the kids' version of "cops and robbers," which was where they mostly mimicked what Betty and Shego went through on their jobs than anything else. Mayah was always a cop. Usually, Raziya or Jayden got dubbed the "bad guy," who was typically a mad scientist, keeping in line with Betty and Shego hating science. Raziya and Jayden could not understand the hatred of science, but were eager to be "mad scientists," but having to argue that they did not always have to be bad guys. It was during those games that the house suffered greatly, as it always did, as everyone's home did when the kids all got together.

While they were altogether, the kids also had to ask how Jayden got her hair to go from brown to black. She explained that her Mommy "made the color come out of a box." They did not understand that and Shego had to take time out of her life explaining the process, having to deal with plenty of "why" and "how" questions while she was at it, which she had expected and worked her way through until they were satisfied. It was annoying and tiring that they were so logic driven and also wanted to know every procedure if they could. It had been an exhausting day.

Shego had an arm wrapped around Kim to secure her in place, so she did not roll off of the couch. Kim had her head tucked underneath Shego's chin. They both had their mouths wide open as they slept, appearing completely knocked out. And then a loud "thud" from upstairs took Shego from a wonderful dream.

"Princess," the pale woman said while shaking Kim slightly to wake her up.

"Hmm?" the tired scientist replied, not bothering to open her eyes.

"The fuck are the kids doing?" Shego inquired, knowing that Todd and Jayden were the ones causing all of the commotion since they were now the only kids home. Everyone else had thankfully left less than a half-hour ago.

"I think Smiley's looking for old books of mine," Kim answered.

"What?"

"He wanted some more science books and I told him I had a bunch in the attic," the redhead explained.

"Why didn't he get them earlier?" Shego complained. He was making a lot of noise up there, which was making it difficult to sleep.

"I told him wait for everyone to go home because, well, do you want all of them up there going through everything?" Kim commented.

"You make a damn good point. I hope he's keeping an eye on his sister," Shego muttered.

"He always does," the hero replied.

Shego could not argue that and did not try. She closed her eyes and hoped that she would be able to fall back to sleep, despite the racket that Todd and Jayden were creating in the attic. She was out in no time. Kim had fallen back to sleep the second another question had not come her way.

--------------

"Our moms sure do collect a lot of junk," Jayden commented while looking through a box in the attic with her brother. She was about to fall into the box it seemed from how deep she was buried in the thing.

"Well, that's what happens when you're into a lot of stuff," Todd answered. He was now an average looking eleven-year-old. His crimson hair still cut short; he preferred it that way. His skin was still pale despite the fact that he was a very outgoing child, especially when it came to playing sports.

"What the hell's this?" Jayden asked while pulling out an old plush toy.

"I dunno. Probably something of Kimmie's," Todd replied with a shrug as he turned to see what his sister was talking about. He was going some other boxes to her left since the boxes were marked as "Kim's books."

"Mom has nasty fucking taste in toys. Care Bears are much better," Jayden remarked while throwing the toy across the attic.

"Yeah, we're not all into Care Bears like you, Jade," Todd quipped with an amused half-smile on his face.

"Well, you should be."

Todd could not help laughing. He continued his search for the books that his Kimmie promised him were up there. She claimed that she had more science books than she knew what to do with, which he figured had to be enough books to fill a public library. He had just not been able to locate the container that the science books were stored in. He kept digging out math books. He was surprised by how many math books the redheaded hero owned.

Jayden busied herself leaping into the box that she had pulled the plush toy out of. She sat down in the box to continue her search through all of its contents. She was also throwing what she considered to be very crappy plush toys out of the box. The things looked kind of disturbing in her opinion. She could not believe her mother's poor taste in toys.

"Look at this. What the hell is this thing?" Jayden inquired, holding up what appeared to be panda mixed with a kangaroo. Now really, what kind of sick bastard would think of such a toy?

"Jade, I dunno. You really shouldn't throw Kimmie's things around like that, though," Todd commented as it finally hit his brain that Jayden was just flinging the things out of the box across the attic.

"I guess," Jayden said, sucking her teeth. She supposed that her Mom would not like her throwing the toys around the attic as if they were worthless. She knew that she would not like someone doing it to her things, so she probably should not do it, she concluded.

Jayden never did think too much that Todd called their Mom "Kimmie" instead of "Mom." It was the same with their Mommy and he called her "She-she" instead. She just thought that was normal because things had been like that for as long as she could remember. Her friends thought the same.

"Smiley," Jayden called.

"What?" he asked, not bothering to turn to look at her, which did not bother her. She had his attention and that was good enough for her.

"Did we ever have a dog?" she inquired curiously.

"No."

"What about a cat?"

"No."

"Do people put collars on rabbits?"

At that question, Todd decided to turn around and just see what was causing his sister to ask such questions. She was holding a collar in her hand, which he guessed explained why she wanted to know if they had a dog or a cat. He wondered why they did have a collar since as far as he knew, they never had any pets. Sure they had plenty of animals in the house, but none of those would need a collar as they were all reptiles or amphibians and they were not pets.

"Lemme see that," he requested.

"Okay. It says 'Pumpkin' on it," she informed him. Most people might have thought it odd that a four-year-old could effortlessly read such a big word, but it did not cross his mind because it was normal in their home.

"Hmm," he said curiously while looking at the item as she passed it to him. He thought that it was a little weird for them to have a collar with a nickname that She-she called Kimmie.

"Oh, another one!" Jayden reported as she pulled out another collar. "Says 'Princess' on it."

Okay, Todd mentally commented, things were really odd now. Why did they two collars with Kimmie's nicknames on them? And then an image flashed in his mind; he remembered Kim wearing a pink collar years ago.

"Jade, is there one in there that says 'Kimmie' on it?" he asked curiously.

"Lemme check," she answered.

Jayden dived into the box and swam around looking for another collar. She found one almost immediately. She yanked it out and held it up to see that it was a pink collar with a tag reading "Kimmie." Well, she was officially confused. She looked at her brother.

"Why does Mom have collars?" she asked in a perplexed tone.

"You know what, Jade… I think Kimmie used to be She-she's pet," he answered, almost as if he was amazed and stunned by that thought. He was trying to remember exactly what their parents were like when he first met them. It was hard because he knew that as a now eleven-year-old, his memories as an overwhelmed five-year-old were probably not the best. Most of his memories were of him just being happy with them, doing things with them. He could recall their interactions with him, but not with each other.

"Mom used to be Mommy's pet?" Jayden was not following and that was clear from the look on her face. How could their Mom be their Mommy's pet? Their Mom was human, after all. Pets were animals, like Rufus or all of Mayah's dogs.

"Well, I don't really know. I don't remember. Let's see what else is in that box you're in," Todd suggested.

Jayden nodded and dived back into the box after making sure to put the two collars in a secure location next to her on top of a closed box. She chucked out a few more weird looking plush toys. She popped back out of the box as she came across a leash. She held it up with wide eyes. Was their Mom really their Mommy's pet? She tried picturing Shego walking a collared Kim on a leash, which only made her eyes go wider.

"Anything else?" Todd asked because he was just as weirded out as his sister by the leash.

"Hold on," she replied and put the leash down by the collars. She then went back into the box. "Oh, what's this?" she wondered out loud as she pulled out a Rubix cube.

"That's Kimmie's puzzle thingy."

"How do you do it?" she asked curiously while inspecting the device.

"Here, gimme. I'll show you."

Jayden nodded and handed over the puzzle. Todd explained that it was designed for a person to move the sides and the person had to get all of the colors matched up. Jayden nodded to show that she understood the tutorial and it helped that Todd worked the puzzle box as he explained it. She requested it back once she knew how to do it. She giggled as she began working the cube.

"Wanna ask Kimmie and She-she about the collars an' stuff?" Todd asked.

"Hell yeah!" Jayden answered in an enthused tone with a grin. She wanted answers to the mystery as soon as possible.

He chuckled and gathered up the collars and leash. Jayden decided to take the puzzle cube and the panda-kangaroo thing; she was curious as to why her mother would keep such a weird thing. They descended the stairs that led to the attic and went down to the living room where their parents were still sleeping.

Now, Jayden understood that if her parents were sleeping, she should leave them to their rest, but she had an odd philosophy about that. She always figured that if she whispered to them and they kept their eyes closed as they responded to her then she was not really disturbing them. So, she gently tugged at her Mom's arm.

"Yes, Jade?" Kim asked, knowing just from the manner that she was being taken from her sleep that it was her daughter waking her. Todd would have poked her once in the arm and started talking before she acknowledged him.

"Mom, did you used'a be Mommy's pet?" Jayden asked rather bluntly.

"What?" Kim asked, considering that she might be dreaming because of what she thought the baby just asked her.

"Kimmie, you used to be She-she's pet, right?" Todd inquired.

"What? What are you two asking?" Kim asked, opening her eyes to pay them proper attention.

"You used to be She-she's pet, right?" the redheaded boy repeated.

Kim was not sure how she should answer that question. She shook Shego a bit, hoping to rouse her wife for some help in the rather awkward situation that she found herself in. The pale woman groaned and swatted at Kim to get her to stop.

"Quit it, Kimmie," Shego grumbled.

"Wake up. Boogie and the mini-monster have questions," the petite scientist informed her spouse.

"What questions? You can handle questions, being a genius and all," the green-skinned woman pointed out.

"Not this question," Kim replied.

"Mommy," Jayden said since Shego appeared to be awake for the most part. "Did Mom used'a be your pet?" she inquired.

"What the hell?" Shego muttered. She had not been expecting that question. She opened her eyes and turned her attention to the siblings.

"I don't really remember, but Kimmie used to be your pet, right, She-she?" Todd asked.

"Okay…" Shego muttered and she sat up, being careful of Kim. She held Kim to her until they were all the way up and then Kim just leaned against her mate.

"Isn't that true?" Todd inquired. He figured that he might have things wrong since he was not getting any answers, only strange reactions. Usually, their parents answered their questions without hesitating, but that was not happening at the moment.

"What makes you two ask that?" Shego decided to ask. It seemed like a very safe question.

"These." Todd held up the collars and leash.

"Where'd you get those?" Kim inquired in a shocked tone. She was close to being embarrassed as their son held up the items. It was almost like he was holding up her underwear or something even worse.

"They were in a box that Jade was playing in," he explained.

"With these!" Jayden grinned as she held up the puzzle cube and the plush toy.

"My rubix cube!" Kim grinned too and then she noticed the toy. "And my panda-roo!"

"Panda-roo?" Jayden echoed. "That's what it is?" she wondered aloud while looking at the stuffed animal. She guessed that it was an appropriate name for the thing, but it was still kind of weird looking.

"Yeah," Kim answered.

"Can I have it?" Jayden requested out of the blue. She still thought it was a weird looking thing, but she would like to have something that was once her Mom's and that obviously brightened her mother's day just looking at it.

"Of course you can have it. He needs a good home," Kim replied with a smile on her face. She was happy to give her daughter something that was so close to her heart.

"Can I have this too?" the child asked, holding up the puzzle cube.

"Of course," Kim answered easily. "I hope you have as much fun with it as I used to," she added, which caused her daughter to smile widely again.

"Okay, but did you used to be She-she's pet?" Todd asked once more. He was very curious about that because he wondered if it was just a memory that he created or not.

Kim and Shego looked at each other, wondering what they should say. Shego opened her mouth first and began telling the kids just how she met Kim; a semi-clean version of it anyway. Todd and Jayden took seats on the floor as the tale continued. Shego even had Kim's attention as she told the story.

The pale woman relayed the tale in a manner that Kim had not even thought about when she was living it because Shego pointed out her mistakes and errors while going through how she really felt at the time, but tried to convince herself otherwise. Now, Kim had known that Shego had underlying feelings for her that went beyond keeping her as a pet, but she did not know the full extent. Plus, hearing Shego talk about it was just fascinating since before most of it was just speculation on Kim's part; sure, it was bang-on speculation, but it was still just assumptions. Now, there were confirmations.

Shego also told the story in a way to make sure that the kids understood that she did not see Kim as an animal or anything like that. The children found it funny that the plan to get rid of Kim had backfired, but for the most part, they really did not understand the relationship. They were not expected to and were told as much. It was an odd thing, both Kim and Shego admitted, and they did not expect anyone to understand, especially people that were not there. They also made it clear that they did not want or encourage the kids to go out trying to make people their pets or to allow themselves to be anyone's pet.

The kids understood that for the most part, not wanting to have a pet or to be anyone's pet anyway. To help themselves understand why Kim would do such a thing, they figured that it was just some kind of game that their mothers played because that made the most sense to them. Other than that, they could not explain the relationship to themselves, but since they were told that no one really understood the relationship, they did not feel too bad about it. Still, being who they were, Todd and Jayden tried their best to comprehend why Kim had been Shego's pet. They just did not come up with anything outside of it being a game and they just settled on that one.

--------------

Jayden put "panda-roo" on her bed, in the corner next to her Good Luck Bear plush toy. She looked at the still decidedly strange toy, but finally concluded that she liked it. She would take care of it like her Mom had done before locking it away in a box. Sure, Care Bears were better, but the panda-roo could hang out with her Care Bears.

She put the puzzle cube on her nightstand and planned on solving it as soon as she could; she had been trying to get a side all day by herself, but was only able to do so after seeking help from her brother. She was going to do it by herself, though, especially since her Mom told her that she had solved the puzzle plenty of times and now Jayden wanted to do the same.

Lastly, Jayden went underneath her bed and pulled out a shoebox that she kept. It held things like lost puzzle pieces; she did not know what puzzles they went to. There were crayons and color pencils in there too. There was a charm bracelet in there from a time that she, Mayah, and Raziya all won at a game at their favorite arcade; she did not wear it because it was not Care Bears on the charms. She deposited a pink collar and a green collar in to the box.

Yes, she had taken two of Kim's old collars. She was not sure why, especially since she had no plans to be a pet. Maybe it was just nice to have something that her Mommy had give her Mom before she had shown up in their lives and before they even knew what the future held for them. Whatever the reason, the four-year-old made sure the collars were secure in her box and she was going to keep them as best she could.

--------------

Todd lay in bed that night. He was holding the black collar in his hand and staring at it. He planned to keep that one; he had given the other two to his sister. He had no plans of being a pet or getting a pet, but he did want the collar and he considered that he wanted it for the same reason that Jayden did. It felt precious to have something that Shego had given Kim, even if it was a collar.

He thought of how much trust Kim must have had in Shego to agree to something crazy like being her pet. It just made him believe that they loved each other deeply, even if he could not understand the relationship of master and pet in their regard. He hoped that one day he could trust someone not in his family the way that Kim had trusted Shego and then he hoped that he would be able to take care of someone like Shego had done with Kim.

--------------

"Do you think we just started something bad?" Kim wondered aloud, speaking to Shego. They were curled up in bed.

"Nah. They wouldn't think about going out and being a pet or getting a pet," Shego answered. "Well, not until they gradate college or turn eighteen anyway," she added.

"I guess if they do it, then it'll be karma for us," Kim remarked.

Shego only laughed a bit. She hated to think how she would react if Todd or Jayden popped in and announced that they were someone's pet. She supposed that she would finally totally understand Kim's parents on the subject. She shook her head, amused with her own thoughts. She was a hypocrite and she knew that, but she really did not care.

As much as Kim hated to think it, if the kids did come home and announced that they were someone's pet, she doubted that she would approve of it. Well, she would let them explain the situation and then she would have to meet the "master." Maybe it would be like the relationship she had and she would understand. Or, so she hoped anyway.

"I am happy you told them the truth," Kim said to Shego.

"I am too," the older woman concurred. She liked being honest with their kids because they were so curious and open-minded. They were always looking to learn, especially about their parents and it was kind of flattering to her, which was why she enjoyed telling them the truth.

--------------

Next time: Jayden and Raziya start school. Pray for their teacher.


	27. Reason Twentyseven: Legal torture

I don't own these characters. I don't own the original premise behind this saga. I don't own the Care Bears. I don't own Legos or Knex. I do own Jayden, Raziya, Bokuden, Mayah, and Aztek.

Reason Twenty-seven: Legal torture

_Jade and Razi's first day of school…maybe there should be a moment of silence for the teacher's sanity._

Kim and Shego were overjoyed; Monique and Felix were right with them. They were about to experience something that Betty and Dahntay along with Ron and Yori had already experienced. They were all about to send their kids off for their first day of school at the grand, exalted, and rather expensive Roosevelt Academy; the private school that Betty had declared all of their children needed to attend. The two couples were happy about it, but they were also understandably nervous about it.

Like Mayah and Bokuden, Jayden and Raziya were not really like other kids and they had not had the civilizing of preschool under their belts. Mayah and Bokuden had already kind of softened the school up since they had started last year, but Raziya and Jayden were just two different creatures from their friends and there was probably no way to prepare people for them completely. It did not help that their parents noticed a couple of years ago that Jayden and Raziya were, well, brilliant and that seemed to only be growing with time. They were not saying it like any proud parents of their children, but they were pretty sure that Jayden and Raziya were following in Kim and Felix's footsteps. The pair could already read and write, better than Mayah, even though she was a year older than they were. Raziya had shown artistic abilities as well as being mechanically inclined, which she inherited from both of her parents. Jayden was already knowledgeable about many animals and numerous environments of the planet; not to mention, olive-eyed child had a keen power of observation. She was definitely Kim's daughter in that regard. And then there was the major concern, Jayden's mouth.

Jayden seriously had Shego's mouth. Now, Mayah had Betty's mouth, so they would guess that Mayah softened up the kindergarten teachers at the prestigious private school, but Mayah was not quite Jayden since Betty was not quite Shego. Well, they were about to be in for a surprise if Mayah had not warmed them up the previous year. Hopefully, Jayden did not get herself thrown out.

Jayden and Raziya were not too sure what was going on about kindergarten. They had been told about school by Todd, Mayah, and Bokuden. But, they had also been told about it by their parents. They were getting conflicting stories, which they generally detested because it made it hard to come to a proper conclusion about anything. They had agreed that it was something that warranted further investigation. So, far, they were not liking it, as they had been told they would feel by Todd, Mayah, and Bokuden.

The first problem that the two girls had was that they had to wear uniforms; it was a private school after all. They were not used to wearing skirts, which they did have on; their parents made sure to put shorts on under the skirts for the girls because they knew that the shorts would be necessary with the pair. The skirts were black and they were given maroon jackets with the school insignia on the front pocket. Raziya thought the color scheme was horrible; her mother agreed because the colors were too dark. Jayden hated the blazer for the simple fact that it was not pink, green, or purple.

The two girls looked around the halls of the school. It sure was big, they thought. It was like being in a museum, they figured; well, a museum without all of the great displays that they could not touch because museums were always so stingy with everything…in their opinions. They did not mind the size of the school and liked the sound of their new shoes clicking on the tiled floor. They did dislike the shoes however because they pinched their toes slightly and were slippery, meaning if they tried to run in the footwear, they would fall on their faces. The halls were dim, which did not bother them either. It was not until they got to class that the real problem hit.

"Okay, you two be good. We did pay the tuition for the year and there's no refunds," Shego remarked with a smile, figuring that the warm expression would help Jayden in case the kid decided that she wanted to panic now. Not that Jayden was known to panic, but they were stepping into uncharted territory with her now.

"Yeah, and we would like you guys to be able to go to this school all the way through high school," Felix added in as if he was joking. He was telling the truth, though. The academy went all the way up to high school and it was such a highly praised school that they all did want their kids to make through all of the grades and graduate from the high school.

The girls did not like the way their parents were talking to them. It sounded suspiciously like their parents were leaving. The girls were not in favor of that, especially when their parents did turn to leave.

"Hey, where the hell are you going?" Jayden demanded to know, looking angry to cover up the fact that she was slightly frightened, as was Raziya, who was looking half as scared as she actually was. The pair had never been "alone" before, namely without adults around that they knew. They were used to being with their parents or at least with the parents of their friends.

"We've got these things called jobs, kid," Shego replied, sounding much like the smart-aleck that she was.

"Well, you can't just leave us here," Raziya pointed out what she believed to be obvious. Her blue eyes revealing her distress just as much as the dread in her voice did. Her heart was beating as if she had just raced to the end of the block and she did not like the feeling.

"Hmm…I think we're going to do that one, Razi," Felix replied with a teasing smile on his face. He was hoping that his expression would set her at ease since he teased her all the time when everything was all right.

"You can't!" both children protested vigorously. They seemed to think they were being abandoned with the way their faces looked. Their parents had never seemed either of them look so fearful before.

The two girls practically flew to their parents. Jayden caught Shego and Kim around their legs like a chain linking the both of them. She held onto both of them while Raziya was clutching her mother's legs like a vice. It was like they planned to leave with their parents attached to them like that or they were trying to weigh their parents down, so the adults could not leave. The parents all looked down at the pair.

"These two must be more students for me," the teacher commented as she approached the two families, who were cluttering up the doorway.

"Yeah, they're your problem now," Felix remarked with a laugh. He hoped that she loved her job or she was going to find herself feeling very unpaid soon.

"Hey, girls, how about you let go and come meet some of your classmates? I'm sure they'd all like to meet you," the teacher said in a sweet voice while bending down to the girls' level.

"You're gonna leave us with a stranger!" the girls shrieked in terror, speaking to their parents. They could not believe that their parents were serious about leaving them in a stranger place with a woman that they did not know. Anything could happen!

"She's not a stranger. She's the teacher," Kim explained to the children. The two knew what a teacher was, but they could care less.

"Here, I'll take them," the teacher offered while putting a hand on each girl's shoulders, but they were not letting go of their parents for nothing. The teacher laughed a bit, sounding a bit comfortable. She was undoubtedly ill-at-ease with the strength of the girls and their ability to hold on.

The parents pried their children from their limbs and turned them over to the teacher. Jayden and Raziya looked with utter shock in their wide eyes as their parents walked out of the room. They struggled to wrench away from the teacher and managed to get away after a few seconds. They went to the door to see their parents all the way down the hall already. They could not believe the betrayal that they felt in regards to their parents, but they still wanted to go with the adults. They would have run after their parents in a flash, but the teacher started pulling them gently back into the room.

"Daddy!" Raziya called, thinking that he would turn around and help, but that did not seem to be the case. Time for plan B then. "Mommy!" she screamed as if she was in serious distress, but she did not get a response again.

"Mom! Mommy! Come back!" Jayden hollered, but her parents did not turn around. "We'll fucking get you back for this!" she promised loudly before being yanked into the room.

"Did Jade just swear revenge against us?" Monique asked curiously as they exited the building. She sounded a bit disturbed by the possibility, even though it was not surprising to her that Jayden would do such a thing.

"Yeah, she does that now," Kim replied as if it was nothing because she and Shego were used to it. Their child had been swearing revenge a lot lately. She still owed them for making her eat broccoli last night; she actually owed them for every time they made her that particular vegetable. They were pretty sure that she got the habit from Shego grumbling things about Betty and work when she got home after a particularly stressful day.

"That is definitely your daughter," Felix said to Shego, who shrugged as if that was a compliment.

The group hardly thought about how Jayden had come into being now. Felix and Monique had their hands full with Raziya and the way that Jayden behaved made them almost forget how she was conceived. She had mannerisms from Kim and Shego; she had their looks; she had their interests; she had their speech patterns. She was them completely. The ebony-colored hair helped too because now she also looked like Shego. Jayden was Kim and Shego's daughter, simple as that.

--------------

"Those bastards!" Jayden fumed, referring to their parents. She punched her right hand into her left palm to further show her anger. She and Raziya were standing alone, raging about their parents betraying them so cruely. The teacher had turned away from them for a moment, giving them a chance to mingle on their own, which they obviously were not taking.

"Well, Bo and Mayah said this would happen," Raziya pointed out, clearly as upset as her friend, but trying to be rational about things. Logic was not helping her feel any better, though.

"Well, I didn't believe them," Jayden countered with the obvious. She would not be nearly as livid as she was if she had believed them.

"Me neither," Raziya admitted. They did not think that anything was possible to make their parents just abandon them somewhere.

"Okay, you two, go mingle with your classmates," the teacher urged the pair when she saw that the two girls were just standing by themselves.

Jayden and Raziya decided that they would see what the people they were trapped with were all about. They only had ten classmates. The school was very hard to get into and everyone had to be interviewed, students and parents alike. Jayden and Raziya had impressed the board of admissions with their vast knowledge, even though they had been unaware that they were doing that. They thought that they were just answering annoying questions; they had to be bribed to do that by their parents.

The interview process was rather interesting for Jayden and her parents because first the board had to get by the fact that Kim and Shego were a same-sex couple. They were shaky about that until they started asking the parents questions and getting an understanding of the couple. They all reviewed information from the couple that was asked in a survey and found several items interesting, like Kim's education background and both of their family histories. After getting past the parents, they did have to make it passed Jayden in the interview.

Jayden's interview had been interesting because of her very casual swearing. But, while cursing like a sailor, she did articulate herself rather well for a five-year-old; Raziya did an even better job at that in her interview. With Raziya, the board had to get around the fact that she looked everywhere but at them as she answered a question; hey, things had her attention while they were trying to talk to her, but she did respond.

The pair was not too sure what to do about the ten children in the large, but cozy room with them, playing with various items on the plush, light blue carpeted floor. If they were with Mayah and Bokuden, they would find something to do, like maybe get into a fight for the hell of it, be it physical or verbal. They were not too sure about doing that with the kids they were around now.

"That looks fun," Raziya commented, pointing to a boy playing with Legos. The blocks reminded her of her Knex at home, but the Knex were mostly rods and connecting joints. Still, she could build with Knex and he was building with Legos.

"Yeah," Jayden agreed and they walked over to the boy. "Let us play, please," the olive-eyed girl requested rather politely. Her face was as sweet as her tone and she was being sincere about it. She did have some manners thanks to her Mom.

"No," he answered bluntly.

Raziya and Jayden were taken back by that, especially the harsh tone that he used. They were not used to being told "no" by a peer either. After all, if they asked Mayah or Bokuden if they could play, they would be enthusiastically welcomed. They looked at each other, deciding that they did not like that answer.

"Let us play with those," Jayden said in a much less pleasant tone that time. In fact, if the boy was a bit more perceptive, he probably would have been frightened by her voice.

"No," the boy brazenly repeated.

"Fine," Raziya said as if that was it and then she snatched away the container that had the Lego blocks in it.

"Hey!" he objected.

Raziya and Jayden walked off with their stolen goods, but they did not make it far. The teacher noticed what happened and stopped them in their tracks. They were puzzled by that, especially when she took back the toys. The girls looked at each other as if asking "what the hell?"

"These are for everyone to play with," the teacher told them.

"Well, he wasn't letting us play," Raziya argued. If the toys were for everyone, they should have been allowed to play from the start and nothing would have happened in the first place. In fact, all three of them could have been sitting and having fun if that boy had obeyed the seemingly established rule that the toys were for everyone.

"You all have to play together," the teacher said.

The teacher returned the toys to the boy and told him to let the girls play. He nodded to show that he understood and the teacher looked at the girls to see if they comprehended that they all needed to share. Jayden and Raziya did not acknowledge the woman or her stare, which bothered her a bit, but she did not touch on it just yet. As soon as the teacher was gone, he turned away from the duo and played with the Legos on his own. The two looked at each other and then at the boy.

"She said let us play," Raziya pointed out.

"No," he stated. Obviously, he was selfish, which just rubbed the friends the wrong way since it was not something that they were accustomed to.

"Okay, he wanna be an asshole about things," Jayden commented and she marched over to the toys. She picked them up and threw them with ease across the room. The blocks spilled out against the back wall; she luckily did not hit anyone.

"Hey!" he objected.

"Now, no one can fucking play with them," Jayden declared. That was a learned move from her parents and her friends' parents. If they ever started arguing about a toy or a show, the toy was removed or the television was turned off, which often did cut out the argument. It tended to prompt them to find something new to entertain themselves because they knew that blaming each other would only be fun for a few minutes.

"Teacher!" the boy called. It would seem that he knew how to use the school system to his advantage while the girls were new to it all.

The boy tattled on them, which was something that Raziya and Jayden were not familiar with. They had all been taught that tattling was not a good thing, unless a parent wanted information anyway. They were then admonished by the teacher for their behavior, which they also did not like for various reasons, like the fact that they were being talked down to and the scolding in general when the boy was being a jerk. The pair decided right then and there that they hated school and what continued to happen was not going to make things better.

They tried to get along with some of the other kids while they had time, but they found themselves not really interested in the children or their toys. There was some kind of dynamic missing from the whole experience that they could not quite place, but the other kids certainly were not like Mayah and Bokuden Playtime was ended and it was time to do some schoolwork. The work was boring for them since it involved practicing writing the alphabet and spelling some small words from a picture worksheet. They already knew how to write the entire alphabet, and not just the English alphabet at that. They also knew how to spell plenty of big words and that was almost not limited to the English language, so the basic work that their classmates were doing did not hold much interest to them.

"Hey, wanna see me do a handstand?" Jayden asked Raziya out of the blue. It was something that came to mind for the raven-haired girl to help pass the tedium.

"You can?" Raziya inquired as if she was in awe of the younger girl.

Jayden nodded and got out of her chair at the circular desk that the students were sitting at, which immediately caught the teacher's attention. She wondered what Jayden was doing. The child quickly showed her by flipping on to her hands; it would seem that it was smart for her mothers to put shorts on her underneath her skirt or she would have been showing the whole class her Care Bear underwear.

"Do it on one hand," Raziya dared Jayden to make things even more interesting.

"No, don't do it on one hand. Jayden, get up and finish your work," the teacher ordered, sounding like she was losing some of her patience with the girls since they had already done a couple of other stunts since arriving in her class.

"I did finish it," Jayden replied, remaining on her hands. She remembered when she had first done and maintained a handstand, which was not too long ago. Her mothers and brother had gone wild with praise for her. She understood that physical feats were something that her family held in great esteem, so she tried to do things, mostly stuff that she had witnessed her mothers or brother do, and kept at them until she succeeded; all of her friends were like that and her brother was also like that. They all knew that physical and mental feats would gain them praise and, well, who did not like praise?

"You finished it?" the teacher asked in disbelief. The worksheet had twenty-five pictures on it for the kids to identify and spell out and before that they had to write the alphabet, both the upper and lower case letters. They had only started that activity less than ten minutes ago. She did not see how it was possible for the olive-eyed girl to be finished.

"Yeah," Jayden answered.

"Do it on one hand," Raziya urged her friend again.

"Fine," Jayden replied, thinking that she should be able to do it. She had seen her parents do it a few times and she figured that if she observed something enough, she should be able to do it because that happened with other things that her parents taught her.

The raven-haired child quickly switched to one hand before the teacher could object. For a second, she was doing it, but that was only for a second. She could not keep her balance and fell over. The teacher gasped as Jayden hit the floor, even though the floor was carpeted. Raziya started laughing when her friend's back impacted the soft rug.

"You fell," Raziya pointed out the obvious while pointing at Jayden and giggling like mad.

"Oh, my goodness. Jayden, are you all right?" the teacher asked with great concern as she hurried to the girl's side.

Jayden sat up and laughed sheepishly, looking very much like Kim as she did so. She did not register that the teacher was worried around her. She did note that her friend was still laughing at her, though.

"Shut the hell up, Razi. You can't even do it on two fucking hands," Jayden barked at her friend, sounding very much like Shego now.

It was about that time that the teacher realized two things, Jayden was not hurt and she had a very foul mouth. She helped the child up and admonished her for using "such language." Jayden was confused on the "language" that she used.

"Aren't we s'pposed to speak English 'round here?" Jayden asked curiously. She had noted that everyone in the room was speaking English, so what was wrong with her language? It was English, just like everyone else's.

"I hope so. I'm not so good at any of the others," Raziya commented, playing with her fingers a bit because she embarrassed by admission. Since their parents spoke different languages, of course the kids were learning them too. So far, Bokuden seemed to be best at commanding other languages, but their parents were all certain that they would all get better as they got older and got more practice in.

"I don't mean like that," the teacher said while shaking her head. She was starting to realize that something was a little off about the girls. "You shouldn't curse around here," she told the olive-eyed girl.

"Why not?" Jayden inquired. She knew what "cursing" was, but she did not see what the problem was. Her Mommy did it all the time. Her mothers did not say anything about it when she cursed, nor did any of her former babysitters. She did not recall ever being scolded about using swear words and she did not see why she would. Words were words; they were used to convey ideas and express emotion. She was doing just that, in her opinion.

"Because they're bad words," the teacher explained calmly, although she spoke through clenched teeth.

"How can words be bad?" Jayden asked, still perplexed on the whole matter.

"Because they're not polite."

"How the hell can words not be polite?" Jayden inquired, utterly baffled with the entire conversation.

Raziya was with her friend in her questioning of the issue. Personally, Raziya did not cuss because her parents did not use swear words anywhere near as often as Jayden's Mommy did, but she did not understand how words could be impolite. People could be impolite and use words in a manner to express that, but they did not see how the words themselves could be that way. The subject was bordering on illogical for them, which was a surefire way to lose their interest and their respect…not that they had any of that for the teacher at the moment.

"Just stop using those words," the teacher ordered, not having the time to go into the reasoning behind the matter, which was what the two girls would have liked because if something could not be explained to them, they did not think that they were being told the truth.

"Why?" Jayden asked. She was a "why" machine, but that was mostly because she was used to getting an explanation for every "why" that escaped her mouth. Her friends were the same and they liked that. They wanted to understand the world around them as best they could, especially if something did not make sense to them.

"Because they're bad for a child to say," the teacher informed her.

"Why?" Jayden continued on with Raziya in the mix as far as her attention went. They had never been told that some words were bad for children to say. They did not see why some words would be bad for a child to say either. After all, words were just words to them.

"As long as you're in my class you won't use those words."

"So, if I use those words, you'd put me out of the class, so I wouldn't be in here anymore?" Jayden asked logically.

"Yes," the teacher affirmed.

"Then I can go home?" Jayden guessed, which was what she wanted. Raziya was with her on that one and she would certainly start using swear words right along with Jayden to get the hell out of the room.

"No, you can't go home."

"Well, then, where the hell would I go after I use those words in your class?" the child inquired, looking frustrated and lost with the whole thing. She was perplexed and she hated the feeling. The teacher made no sense to her; Raziya agreed.

The teacher huffed, obviously annoyed with the girl and all of her questions; she had never encountered such a logic prone child. She just ordered Jayden back into her chair and she then checked Jayden's work to see that she was done. She also looked Raziya's work over to see that she was done too. The kids had the nerve to have fairly nice handwriting styles for kids their age too. The teacher decided to leave them alone for the time being, at least until she could regroup.

--------------

During lunchtime the kindergarteners ate in their classroom. Raziya and Jayden went to their cubbies and pulled out their lunchboxes. Jayden had an old-fashion tin lunchbox with Care Bears on it; Shego told Kim that they were just arming Jayden by giving her such a lunchbox, but the child had gone crazy with joy when she saw it and Kim just had to get it. Raziya had a special lunchbox that she and her mother had painted and decorated together. They sat alone for lunch in a corner of the room, not very much liking their classmates so far and that was just going to get worse.

A rather large boy marched over to the pair as they took out their sandwiches. He reached down, about to take Raziya's sandwich, but she caught his hand; hey, while being taught all kinds of other things, they were all getting martial arts training already too. She held him tightly around the wrist, but he yanked his limb back.

"Gimme ya sandwich," he ordered Raziya.

"Why should I?" Raziya inquired, genuinely interested in the reasoning for his demand. She wanted her sandwich; it was turkey, which was her favorite. With her friends, if they wanted something that she had, they would either ask nicely for it or they would offer to trade for it. He was doing neither, which she did not comprehend.

"Because I said so."

Raziya was confused by that answer, as was Jayden. They were both also sick of school already and how nothing made sense in the building. Now, why in the hell would they give him anything just because he said so? He was not one of their parents or any other adult that would matter to them. He needed to learn to request or haggle things better than that, they both thought.

"Go away," Raziya said in tone that showed she expected him to do just that.

"Gimme the sandwich," he ordered again and he went to grab her.

Jayden and Raziya knew a fight was pending when they saw one; they had been in enough battles already to know such things. They fought mostly with Mayah and Bokuden and also Todd. Fighting with Todd had taught them an important lesson; the bigger person usually won unless the smaller person had an advantage of some kind to level things. The boy was bigger than Raziya, so to win, they would need something extra. Jayden provided that, flinging her tin lunchbox at the boy and catching him right in the side of the head with a corner; she had a good arm.

"Go the fuck away," Jayden ordered in exasperated tone. She was sick of everyone around them now.

The boy screamed as the box connected with his dome and he started crying. The teacher's attention was drawn to the noise and she was not surprised to see Jayden and Raziya being in the center of the controversy. She saw to the injured boy and then punished the two girls. It was official: school sucked. And to think, they still had half a day to go. They were not looking forward to it, but then again, neither was their teacher.

--------------

"Mommy!" Raziya cheered as Monique walked through the door.

"Mom!" Jayden practically cried as Kim entered right behind Monique. It was like their mothers were rescuing them from a dungeon, the adults noted.

The children charged their mothers and flew into their arms. They clutched onto the pair as if they never planned to let go. Shego and Felix entered the room right after that and looked at how the kids were hanging on to their spouses. They all had the feeling that the first day did not go so well.

"Having them around was an adventure, wasn't it?" Shego remarked, speaking to the teacher as she approached them. The teacher appeared a bit worn out, her hair was a mess, which it had not been when they saw her that morning, her eyes were droopy as if she was ready to fall asleep and her eyes were lacking the radiant shine that they had to them that morning, and her shoulders were slumped as if she had been defeated in a grueling battle. It looked like the official score at the end of the day was: Jayden and Raziya—one, teacher—zero.

"I think they would adjust better if a parent stayed here just for a few days to help them get through this," the teacher answered in a steady tone that she had to force out. She was trying to be diplomatic and not just inform the parents that they had raised two little terrors that needed to be shipped off into the army rather than entering an elite kindergarten.

"Batter up, Princess," Shego volunteered Kim while patting her redheaded spouse on the shoulder.

"You do know I have enzymes waiting for me at the lab," Kim pointed out, not that she knew why she even let that leave her mouth. She was busy at work for once, but she knew that was not going to last. She did not mind stopping work anyway, especially to watch Jayden in school.

"They're going to have to keep waiting. You've got to help the mini-monster adjust. You do it one day, I'll do it the next," Shego proposed and her wife nodded in agreement without any other utterance of protest.

"Mo, we could do the same," Felix said.

"Yeah," Monique agreed with that.

The teacher sighed in relief, hoping that having the parents there did do something with those girls. The parents noticed the teacher's sound of relief and they almost laughed, even though they knew how she felt. After all, they had to live with the girls and sometimes, they watched the girls and their friends together. So, they definitely knew what the teacher was going through.

The families then left after deciding that they were going to assist in their kids adjusting to school. They went to meet up with Betty and Dahntay and Yori and Ron, who were there picking up Mayah and Bokuden. The kids were all happy to see each other and had to go into how they hated school. The parents all laughed, remembering the days that they hated school too.

Yori was also heavily pregnant again. Her condition had sparked plenty of questions from the children about where babies came from. Their parents did not lie to them, but they did not go into complicated details because they knew that the kids would not understand. Now the children could not wait to see Bokuden's little brother; Yori had been told that she was having a boy. He was due next month and she could only hope that he did not end up doing like Bokuden and deciding to see if he could out wait the doctor and the due date.

"So, how'd it go with those two?" Betty asked while nodding toward Raziya and Jayden. The kids were standing just a little ahead of the adults. Well, Dahntay was holding Aztek on his shoulders; Aztek was lucky enough to still not be in school and that was only because the Roosevelt Academy did not have a preschool. He was definitely going to be in school next year, though.

"We're pretty sure that they frighten the teacher," Felix answered, a hint of pride in his voice from what the group could tell.

"I told you that you need to stay with them the first few days. We did that with Mayah and Bo and they adjusted pretty well. Yeah, there was the occasional fight and swearing, but they were pretty good," Betty pointed out. Well, they had been as good as one could expect from them being in the same class.

"We're going to do that tomorrow, so shut the hell up with the 'I told ya sos,'" Shego stated with a huff.

"I hope you're not letting her stay," Ron remarked, speaking to Kim about Shego.

"Why not? They let an idiot like you stay," Shego retorted.

"Always with the biting words from you," the blonde commented as if he was hurt by her response. The green-skinned woman rolled her eyes and would have had a comeback for that, but her boss beat her in speaking.

"Well, since they're all in school now, how about we work out a system of picking them up and holding them after school, so they can all play together?" Betty suggested.

"Why does everything have to be organized with you?" Shego asked her friend because that trait of Betty's really did annoy her.

"Because that makes life easier than the non-existent system that you live by," the one-eyed woman replied.

"Doesn't make my life easier," the pale woman remarked, genuinely irked, even though the proposal made sense. Why should they all come up there everyday when one or two of them could do it and save everyone gas money along with giving the kids some time together?

Betty rolled her eye. They all did decide to try and figure out a system of picking the kids up and everything. They were not able to do it those few minutes that they spent standing there in front of the elementary school building and had to wait for another time that they got together. In the meantime, Jayden and Raziya had the news broken to them that they had to go back to school again tomorrow.

"Why!" the girls cried to their parents.

"Because that's how school works," they were told. The whole concept of school then had to be explained to them.

The girls were not fans of "school," but over the next few days, having their parents around made things better. They quickly began to understand that they could not behave with the other children as they did with Bokuden and Mayah; Bokuden and Mayah had learned the same thing when they were in kindergarten and their parents stayed with them. But, there was consequence to the lesson, which had also happened with Mayah and Bokuden, and that was the pair did not want to be around the children. They did not like how they had to act or treat the other children and decided that they would rather just keep to themselves than bother with "brats," which was what Shego dubbed the other snobby kids in the class.

When Kim was in the class with them, Jayden and Raziya tried to get her to bring animals with her. They wanted her to do a lesson like she did with kids in the park, but she had to explain to them that such a thing would be inappropriate, which only proved to them that school was stupid and it sucked. They did like that Kim brought other things for them to do to keep them interested in learning; Monique and Felix also did the same. Shego was just entertaining on her own, so she did not need to bring anything.

A couple of problems did arise with their parents being in class. Some of the students thought that their parents were "weird." Some kids made fun of Raziya's daddy being in a wheelchair while others made fun of Jayden's mommy being green, which was another reason that the girls kept to themselves, especially after they had been told by their parents not to beat on any kids for their words. They hated school so freaking much.

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Next time: more schooling for the kids. Jayden is left to wonder if her family life is "weird."


	28. Reason Twentyeight: Questions

I don't own these characters. I don't own the original premise that this saga is based on. I don't own Care Bears. I do own Jayden, Raziya, Bokuden, Mayah, and Aztek.

Reason Twenty-eight: Questions

_One day, we are going to have to have a hard talk with Jade and we can only hope that she understands._

"This is fucking boring," Jayden declared as if she was standing an undisputed fact.

"I like it," Raziya replied with a small smile, obviously enjoying herself from her expression alone.

The two kindergarteners were in class and they were drawing turkeys by tracing their hands to celebrate the upcoming holiday of Thanksgiving. Jayden thought it was a stupid exercise; encouraging that thought was the fact that she was not artistically inclined and that only showed twice as much sitting next to Raziya, who was quite the gifted little artist. The blue-eyed girl was working hard on her turkey and she was not tracing her hand to do it.

Raziya had broken out a big pack of crayons for the picture; one hundred and eight colors. Her turkey had a pretty realistic forest background with it, along with some artistic license on its colors; she did have to ask Jayden if she was correct in recalling that turkeys lived in woodland areas before she proceeded in doing her background. She had to put her own touch on the tail feathers of the bird because she did have so many colors at her disposal.

"You would," Jayden said, as if that was an insult.

"Don't be mad cuz your bird look like something a cat threw up," Raziya remarked. She did not even have to look at her friend's picture to know how bad it was. She had seen drawings from the ebony-haired girl before, after all.

"Fucking hate art," Jayden mumbled while balling her picture up and throwing at Raziya, nailing her right in the head. That made the raven-haired child smile, but her friend did not see the humor in the move.

"Do you want me to shove this crayon up your nose?" Raziya inquired while pointing one of her many shades of grey at the foul-mouthed girl. She figured that she could lose one grey since she had six different shades of them, especially since it was for the cause of getting Jayden to stop starting things.

"Do you want me to shove my foot up your ass?" Jayden countered.

"Razi, Jade, I don't see coloring over there," their teacher called to them. She knew that they were getting into it more from seeing their expressions than hearing their conversation. She was standing at the front of the class and they were seated in the back. She had put them there to contain their strange energy and to keep them from distracting the other students when serious schoolwork was being done, which they typically breezed through.

The girls sincerely apologized to the teacher for not doing their work. They might not like school much, but they had gotten used to their teacher and she had gotten used to them, especially after some meetings with their parents. The teacher now understood that the duo really did not mean any harm and she also understood that they generally responded positively to authority figures once their parents made it clear to them that the teacher was an authority figure and that they were to respect their teacher by listening to her.

The teacher did not get freaked out when the two girls argued with each other or almost got into physical fights because their parents told her that was fine; the kids were martial-artists-in-training and they sparred with their friends all of the time. She had been told that the best way to get them to not fight was to remind them about the task that they were supposed to be doing, which did work well unless they were having playtime. She did not have to worry about them fighting with the other students; their parents had already taken care of that tidbit of socializing for her and they knew better than to assault one of their classmates.

"You should go get yours," Raziya said to Jayden, referring to her now balled up picture of a turkey.

"I don't wanna. It's stupid. I hate drawing," Jayden grumbled. She actually had a deep dislike for lacking the ability to draw decently. Whenever she did something, she liked to do a good job of it and that was not happening with her artwork.

"Well, whaddaya gonna do?" the brown-haired girl inquired because they were both quite aware that they could not just sit in class and do nothing.

"I brought a book!" Jayden declared with a bright smile.

Raziya was now intrigued and wanted to see what book her friend had brought. Jayden typically had great books because she just borrowed them from her brother, who took books that Kim was not using anymore. Jayden went into her Good Luck Bear book bag; the bag was shaped just like the Care Bear, but with straps for it to hang from her shoulders. She pulled out a thick paperback book.

"Chemistry?" Raziya said while reading the cover of the book.

"Yeah. I'm already halfway through it cuz I read some of it last night with my Mom. I wanna try to read it by myself, though. I mean, I read some other chemistry books by myself, but this one is kinda hard," Jayden explained.

"My Dad doesn't read me chemistry books yet. We're still reading that biomechanics book from last week," Raziya said.

"Still?" Jayden asked in disbelief. Raziya and her dad had been reading that book for almost a whole week. She did not think that anything should take that long to read.

"Yeah, we stopped in the middle because my Mom brought me this book full of artwork," the caramel-skinned girl explained with a smile. She had a good time going through that book with her mother and learning about different artists and their work.

"Artwork is stupid."

Raziya stuck her tongue out at Jayden to dispute that. Their parents found them to be funny little creatures. They were quite advanced for their age, but they still managed to act like five-year-olds, like when they called each other names or when they stuck their tongues out at each other. They were just weird, but then again, so were Mayah and Bokuden, so at least they fit in with their friends.

The teacher came over to check on the pair and found Jayden was reading rather than doing her turkey. Before dealing with Jayden, she turned to make sure that Raziya was doing what she was supposed. She was shocked to see Raziya's work; the child certainly did not draw like any kindergartner that the teacher had ever witnessed. She wasted no time in complimenting Raziya, which the girl absolutely loved. The one thing that both friends did like about school was that a lot of the time, their teacher had some very nice things to say about them.

"Jade, why aren't you drawing like Razi?" the teacher inquired as she turned her attention to the olive-eyed girl.

"Drawing is fucking stupid," Jayden stated without looking up from her book. It was clear from her tone that she was frustrated with the activity.

"That's not true. You should try it," the teacher recommended calmly. She was no longer offended by Jayden's mouth, knowing that was how she expressed herself and her parents allowed it. She was a bit disturbed at how Jayden knew how to curse so well and often used swear words to get her point across, but she did not say anything about it unless another parent complained to her because some of the other students did pick up a few words from Jayden.

"Tried it, hated it, moved on," the child replied. She had tried it on several occasions and found that she was not good at it and she had quickly come to hate it. She would much rather color things if she was going to do art than anything else.

"Come on, you should draw the turkey," the teacher urged Jayden in a gentle tone.

"Why?" Jayden asked. She did not see the educational value in drawing turkeys and the last time she checked, school was supposed to be educational, not that she ever felt like she was learning anything in class.

"Well, that's what everyone else is doing and it would be something nice to show your parents," the teacher answered.

"No, it wouldn't. It's ugly," the child answered. Like she would waste her mothers' time showing them something that looked worse than road-kill, she thought with a mental scoff.

"Really ugly," Raziya chimed in.

"Shut the hell up," Jayden said, slightly offended with the agreement, and she punched Raziya in the arm.

"Ow!" Raziya yelped and she punched Jayden back.

"You two, you know better," the teacher said and she put herself in between them to get them to stop fighting, which worked wonders as always.

Raziya immediately went back to working on her turkey. Jayden turned her attention back to her book and refused to draw the decidedly stupid turkey. The teacher could tell that Jayden was going to be stubborn about things and did not pressure the child to do the turkey. She found that Jayden would be quiet if she was left alone, especially if she had book in her hands, which she did for the moment and she was very quiet. Jayden sat with a content look in her vibrant olive eyes, so the teacher left her and her comrade alone.

Raziya worked on her turkey for all of the time allotted to the class, even though she usually would have dropped her work to read with Jayden. But, she loved drawing and it was encouraged by her parents, especially her mother. Monique had been the one that brought her the huge box of crayons and supplied her with sketchbooks and other art things. She enjoyed drawing with her mother more often than not.

After drawing time was done, the class was set up for the students to do "oral presentations." Pretty much, each student stood in front of the class and just explained what they were thankful for. It was a way to remain in holiday cheer and give the students something different to do.

It worked out fairly well until Jayden got up to talk. She started out saying that she was thankful for her mothers and the fact that they were interesting; she really was thankful that they were "interesting." She also stated that she was thankful that her brother was going to be coming home from his "other house" soon. Her explanation of her family was strange to her classmates and they had plenty of questions, like how it was possible for her to have two mothers. They wasted no time asking her a bunch of things that perplexed her. They wanted to know why she did not have a father; one student went so far to claim that everyone had a father and she was "weird" for not having one. They wanted to know how she had a brother that did not live with her and how she had two mothers. They claimed that no one could have two mothers. She tried to explain, but found that she could not once they started making all kinds of claims, like brothers were supposed to live with their siblings and it was impossible to have two mothers and no father.

The presentation questions upset Jayden, not because she did not know the answers, but because her classmates started getting hostile with her and not allowing her to explain herself. They called her weird or said that she was lying. They kept making absolute statements too that she knew were not as absolute as they wanted her to believe, but she was left curious when it was all said and done; the teacher had to quell the class after a few minutes.

Jayden sat down and Raziya could tell that she was bothered by something. The blue-eyed girl wondered what the problem. She guessed that it was because the stupid kids were all yelling about everything that they did not know anything about. Well, they could not do anything about that considering that they could not beat the kids up, not unless they wanted to get scolded by their parents and possibly placed on punishment, which would be a variety of things they hated, like not being allowed to watch certain shows that they loved.

--------------

Shego sighed as it was her day to pick up all of the brats from school and watch them for a couple of hours. It was always an adventure with them, even just getting them into the car was crazy because they all wanted to ride shotgun. They had no problem with getting into a fight over it, even though they knew that they were supposed to take turns.

Shego just watched them fight over things; they needed to practice as much as they could with their martial arts in her opinion. Bokuden did not fight immediately. He had to wait until someone hit him. He had been doing that since he had started learning ninjitsu from his mother, who told him to always be patient with his fighting among other things, and there was the fact that he had a new baby brother, so he seemed to be figuring out that he had to calm down to make life a bit easier on his mother; Betty wished that Mayah had done the same when Aztek was born.

Yori had had her second son last month. Ron had once again come out strong in their offspring, producing another blonde, brown-eyed baby boy. Their new child ended up like Bokuden though, where they both looked like Japanese versions of Ron, especially now for Bokuden because his face was rounding out like Ron's face. The new baby had been named Nobunaga by Yori; he was also named after a famous Japanese warrior, like his brother. They called him "No" for short just like they called Bokuden "Bo" for short.

Once it was sorted out who was riding shotgun, they were ready to go; it was Mayah's turn in the front seat. It was not that she had won the battle, but that it was actually her turn. None of them ever really won when they fought over the front seat. They tended to just brawl until the adult with them said something along the lines of "it's so-and-so's turn," which settled the matter because whoever's turn it was would be the one to ride there as the driver would make sure of that.

Shego watched as everyone strapped themselves in and asked if they were secure just to make sure. The kids always pulled on their seatbelts to make sure that they were in proper order and working correctly. With everyone fastened in place, Shego pulled off.

The kids all charged into the house when they arrived. They were allowed to play in the living room or in the den because Shego did not want them upstairs, wrecking the bedrooms or worse, setting free any animals that happened to be in the house. And they were good for letting things out of their containers.

So, the children went to the living room, where Shego put on the television for them in case they wanted to watch something, which they did not. They started playing a game while she went into the kitchen to prepare them a snack. She had only been in there for a few minutes before Jayden and Raziya wandered in.

"Mommy," Jayden said to get the pale woman's attention.

"Yeah, kiddo?" Shego replied.

"Can you pass us a knife?" Jayden requested as if that was normal.

"Yeah, sure," Shego said before she realized what her child had asked for. And then it reached her brain. "What, wait? What the fuck do you need a knife for?" she inquired without passing them the requested object. It would be an extremely cold day Hell when she handed them a weapon.

"Surgery," Raziya answered as if that was obvious.

"Surgery?" Shego echoed in a baffled tone.

"We're playing doctor and Bokuden has come in with appendicitis and we need to give him an appendectomy," Jayden explained.

"No, no, no. What have we told you guys when you play doctor?" Shego asked. Their kids played the most realistic version of doctor that they had ever heard of.

"No major surgery," the girls grumbled.

"Right," the green-skinned woman stated.

"But, it's a simple procedure," Jayden argued.

"No, there's no open surgery when you play doctor," Shego informed the pair, even though they knew the rules.

"But, Bo's gonna die if we don't get that appendix outta there," Raziya pointed out.

"Well, I guess you guys are going to have to play funeral then because he's not having the surgery," the adult informed the pair. "Now, get going," she said.

Jayden and Raziya pouted, which got them no sympathy from Shego, which they had come to expect. They obeyed the order and left the kitchen. They guessed that they were going to have to break the news to Bokuden that he was going to "die" because they could not perform any open surgery in their "hospital." He accepted his fate with great, serene understanding; like a samurai, Jayden commented, which caused Bokuden to smile, even though he knew that the samurai was the direct opposite of what he wanted to be in life.

Shego was not freaked out by the realism involved in the kids playing doctor. They were thorough with most of the pretend games that they played. She was not bothered by their use of real terminology either because all of the kids used words that no regular five or six year old would know. She was just used to it and it had always been that way with them anyway and it was not just Jayden and Raziya. Mayah and Bokuden came equipped with their own vast vocabulary that included law enforcement terms as well as martial arts techniques and the ability to argue why something was possible or not with great effort and comprehension.

--------------

After holding a "funeral" for poor Bokuden, whose appendix burst and killed him in the hospital bed, the children tried to figure what else they could do. They did have much time to think of something because Shego came in with their snacks. She had made them a fruit salad pretty much, but it was not put together. There was a bowl with apple slices, another with grapes, another bowl held strawberries, and lastly some oranges. She left them in the living room on their own because she knew that they would be fine while they had their food. It was when they did not have food when they needed to be watched or at least have a person within earshot of them.

"Hey, guys," Jayden said while grabbing a strawberry.

"What?" Bokuden replied while trying to figure out what he wanted. He was starting to get very indecisive about the foods that he wanted to ingest, especially after his trips to Japan. He settled on grapes and grabbed a few of them. He then proceeded to stuff his chubby cheeks full of plump green grapes.

"Is it weird that I don't have a dad?" the raven-haired girl asked them.

The other three thought about it. They had never really noticed that Jayden was the only one among them that did not have a father. They had just noticed that they all had two parents. Two parents was normal to them, so they shook their heads, telling her that they did not think it was weird that she did not have a dad.

"What about the fact that I have two moms, is that weird?" she continued on.

"No," they all answered with their mouths full of delicious fruit. She had two parents like everyone else and that was normal to them.

"Is it weird that my brother doesn't live with us all the time?" Jayden inquired.

Once again, the other three thought about their answers. They were just used to Todd coming and going from the house, even if it was different from their other experiences with siblings. Before Mayah and Bokuden had become older siblings, they might have just assumed that big brothers were supposed to come and go like Todd did, but they knew that was not the case because Mayah lived with her brother all the time and Bokuden so far got to live with his brother all the time. Still, they would not say that it was weird.

"I wish Smiley lived here all the time," Mayah commented with a dreamy smile. There was also a glazed over look in her mismatched eyes for a few seconds. Her friends did not know what to make of the expression, so they ignored it for the most part.

"Me too, but is it weird that he doesn't?" Jayden asked, truly wanting an answer to that. She was trying to understand why her classmates would say such a thing when it did not seem true to her.

"Why would it be weird?" Bokuden countered. He really did not understand. It was something that had gone on forever as far as he could tell and something that went on for that long could not be weird or it would have been changed to be proper, in his mind anyway.

"I dunno," Jayden replied honestly with a shrug. "The kids in our class were saying it was."

"Yeah, but they're stupid," Raziya pointed out as if that was the plain, simple truth, which it was to her.

Jayden could not argue with that logic because the kids in their class were stupid. But, they were all going to be sure that it was nothing like they believed. They were all going to ask their parents when they got the chance, which was not too long a wait for them. Their parents all came to pick them up at the same time, so they all got to be ambushed by the question.

"Hey, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy," Mayah said eagerly while tugging on her mother's sleeve to get Betty's attention while the one-eyed woman was trying to gather up her things for them to go home.

"Yes, Mee-mee," Betty replied calmly, using her nickname for Mayah to throw a little affection her little clone's way.

"Is it weird that Jayden doesn't have a dad?" Mayah asked, which got all the others started up.

"Yeah, is it?" Raziya asked her mother, who was putting her into her coat.

Monique stopped in mid-zip and looked at Felix. Felix looked up at Shego, who was holding onto Jayden. Shego looked down at Kim, who had been trying to explain Jayden the difference between pythons and boas yet again. Jayden always thought that they were same thing, no matter how many times it was explained to her.

"Princess," Shego said to get her spouse's attention.

"Hmm?" Kim asked.

"Gonna jump in here or should I field this one?" the pale woman inquired curiously. She was not looking to be bailed out or anything, but was looking to get her mate a chance to say something. She considered that Kim might be able to do it in a better way than she would because Kim seemed to speak right on the kids' level when explaining something to avoid more questions coming up.

"What? Should I get this one?" Kim countered.

"Well, you've got a good way of handling these things when it comes to the little ones," Shego pointed out, which was why she had turned to her mate in the first place.

"Oh. Well, guys, we all know that families come in all shapes and sizes, right?" Kim said, turning her attention to all of the children and showing that she knew exactly what was going on despite the fact that she had been talking to Jayden before.

The children nodded because that was the truth. Hell, they all came from biracial families after all and they noticed that their families looked different. But, they all had fathers, though.

"Well, our family is just different. It's not weird. Some families have a mom and a dad, others have two moms, and others have two dads. You guys should all be happy to have two parents that all love you very much. A lot kids aren't lucky enough to have that," Kim explained.

"They only have one parent?" the kids asked, in total shock. They guessed that made sense since families were all different, but it was still something that was hard to picture because they were used to families having two parents.

"Yes, some kids only have one parent. But, that's because families come in all shapes and sizes. They're not weird or bad, but different. Now, since when is different bad?" Kim inquired.

The kids stopped and thought on that. They were all different from each other. Their parents were all different from each other. Everyone was different from each other and that did not mean anything bad in their opinions. Okay, well, that matter was cleared up. Families were different, so it was not weird that Jayden did not have a father and it was not weird that she had two mothers.

"What about Smiley not living wif us? Is that weird?" Jayden asked.

"Nope, just another quirk of our family," Kim answered with a smile, which assured the children that it was not weird for Todd to live with his other family as much as her words did.

"Is Smiley ever gonna live with us?" the raven-haired child inquired. Mayah was interested in that one and waiting on pins and needles for the answer.

"One day, little Pumpkin," Shego replied with a laugh and she rubbed Jayden's head. Jayden grinned.

"That's good news," Mayah muttered. No one heard her, which was good all around because it would have seriously disturbed the adults, who had already noticed that she had some odd fixation with Todd.

"You're just going to give Jade all of my nicknames, aren't you?" Kim joked, speaking to Shego.

"Hear that, Jade, Mom just gave you all her nicknames," Shego said.

"More names for me!" Jayden cheered with a grin. She even pumped her fist in the air. The others laughed; Jayden was a riot, even when she did not mean to be.

The question about family did make Kim and Shego realize something that had actually never came to mind. One day, Jayden was going to completely and totally understand biology as an adult, which meant that she was going to want to know who had fathered her. They were not sure what they were going to do about that.

"Love, how did we never realize that Jayden is going to want to know about a father?" Kim asked in disbelief. They were in their room after having put Jayden down for bed that night. They were certain that she was asleep; Shego had read her a story that always knocked her out.

"I don't know. Aren't you the resident genius?" Shego countered.

"With our kids? I'm not even the resident redhead anymore," the hero remarked.

"That's true," the pale woman agreed with a smile.

"So, what are we going to do?" Kim asked curiously. She thought that Shego was pretty good with coming up with tough explanations for things. After all, she had easily cleared up that love issue between her and Jayden.

"Well, this shouldn't be an issue for another few years, right? How about we just put it off?" Shego suggested.

"Do you really want to do that?" the redhead asked in shocked tone.

"Not really. Come here," Shego said while motioning to her wife, who was sitting at the edge of the bed while she was at the head of the bed.

Kim eagerly crawled over to the older woman, who scooped her up in her arms. She laid her face in Kim's hair for a moment before leaning down to kiss the redhead. Kim smiled, even though she was curious as to why she was getting such affection.

"Does this have anything to do with Jayden?" Kim asked curiously.

"I'll think of something and you can think of something. We'll compare notes later on," Shego answered.

"Huh?"

"It's simple, you think of what you want to say to her and I'll think of what I want to say to her. We'll come together after that and discuss it once we know what we want to say to her. Then we'll be all set, having the best explanation mapped out. So, we'll be ready," the green-skinned woman said and then she kissed Kim on the neck a couple of times.

"You are so smart," Kim commented with a smile.

"I try my best," Shego said with a smile of her own. "Now, we've got other problems to consider."

"Like?"

"What do you mean? It's Thanksgiving next week," Shego reminded her spouse.

"Right," Kim said while hitting herself in the forehead. "You do know I totally spaced on that, right?"

"I figured as much when I noticed you yakking to Jade a few days ago about the break through you're making with your other antivenin work. You had to be excited because you were talking to a five-year-old about your progress."

"Hey! She understood like half of it," Kim said in her own defense.

Shego laughed; she had no doubt that their daughter had understood at least half of it. After all, when it came to science, their child was on the same page as Kim; not the same level of course, but she certainly was as eager about it as Kim. Jayden was their baby girl and one day, they were just going to have to explain that to her, even though she was undoubtedly going to bring up the biology of it all. They just believed that they would be ready for that moment when it came.

----(New day)

Thanksgiving was by far Jayden's favorite holiday; her brother agreed with that. They just liked having their family altogether. They were always excited when they were with their uncles and grandparents. Shego liked it now too because she could start trouble with her brothers by telling their mother Jayden kept asking about having cousins. Oh, her brothers hated that, although the twins liked to say that they were working on it. They were not making such progress, though.

Todd tended to have a busy day on Thanksgiving because he had to take a lot of time trying to shake Mayah. It annoyed him to no end that she was always trying to hang out with him, especially when he was trying to send things into orbit with his uncles Jim and Tim. He did not want her to get injured while they out there; after all, his She-she and Betty would undoubtedly slaughter him if she got hurt trying to be around him. They would then go after his uncles.

Jayden took the time show her grandparents her very own reptiles and amphibians. Kim had brought her a few animals because she was just as into them as Kim was and the hero was all about feeding into her children's intellectual curiosity. But, just like Kim, she was not allowed to keep the animals indefinitely. That saddened her until Kim came home with new critters anyway.

The doctors Possible and Isabel listened to Jayden go on about her animals and even held them when she offered, despite the fact that they kind of preferred their wildlife at a distance. For a while, Jason tried to ignore her until Jayden offered him a toad to hold. He declined and she hit him with a pout that Ann knew well; the puppy-dog pout. It had to be genetic, the neurosurgeon thought as Jason caved in and Jayden went back into her talk about her animals. They noted that Jayden seemed to be giving them a lesson and they wondered if she picked that up from Kim when she did have lessons in the park.

"Game time!" Todd cheered as he entered the living room. He was about to sit down on the floor, but Jayden stopped him.

"Smiley, don't sit down!" Jayden yelled in distress.

"What?" he asked curiously and then he noted a frog was right under him. He picked it up and handed it to her. "You shouldn't have Abe out of his box if you're not doing anything with him," he pointed out.

"You should just watch where you park your fucking ass," Jayden commented.

Jason was taken back by the girl's language, but noticed that no one else was shocked by it. It was actually his first time really paying her any mind while her other grandparents knew that she had a gutter mouth. They did think that her speech would clean up as she got older and understood that she should taper the very casual swearing.

"Blah, blah, blah," Todd replied to Jayden's statement, making a flapping, mocking hand gesture to go along with his words. "Wait a second, isn't Abe my frog?" he asked. They sometimes got their animals mixed up and then there was also the fact that they sometimes shared animals, so they often did not know who was keeping what.

"No, and you should address him as Mister President," Jayden replied.

"We've got about twenty 'Mister Presidents' if that's the case," he pointed out with a scoff.

Jayden did not argue that one because they did have at least seventeen different creatures named after presidents. She went back to talking about her animals while Todd had to turn to a football game that he wanted to see. He was very into football now, having played the last two seasons in a pee-wee league. Kim had been promising to take him to a live game sometime soon and he knew that she would keep her word. He could not wait for her to get tickets.

When Jayden finished up with her animals, she helped her Mom put them away. Jayden went back to her grandparents to tell them about school. Mayah joined her, both of them thoroughly badmouthing the learning institution. While they were doing that, Todd got into the football game along with Dahntay, who was into sports and helped Todd better understand the games since Kim and Shego were not the best to explain things since they did not play any sports that he was into.

"Oh, my god, run the ball, run the ball, run the ball!" Todd chanted in an excited tone, which surprised Jason and Hego because they did not think that anyone raised by Kim and Shego would be into something that they decided was one of the defining factors in "manliness."

"Kid, you do know the defense is going to stop them, right?" Jason pointed out. He was actually just trying to discourage the redheaded boy, but he would soon find out that was nearly impossible to do.

"Are you kidding? This defense is worthless," Todd replied with a broad smile while motioning to the television.

"Very worthless," Dahntay agreed while shaking his head.

"I've seen worse," Hego commented.

"That's true too," Dahntay concurred.

The guys watched the game. They were eventually joined by the Wegos, who were into certain sports and football was one of them. Jayden kept the attention of those that were not interested in the game, namely the doctors Possible and her uncle Mego. Mayah eventually just took advantage of Todd sitting down and went to sit down next to him, quietly smiling to herself as she did so.

Betty looked in the living room and called Shego to see the scene. Shego would not believe her eyes, mostly because her father and Hego were cheering with Todd and offering him high-fives during the game. She called Kim, who immediately knew to snap a picture when she looked in on the scene. Shego smiled.

"Talk about a happy Thanksgiving," Kim remarked with a smile of her own.

--------------

Next time: Christmas with this bunch.


	29. Reason Twentynine: Little surprises

I don't own these characters. I don't own the original premise that this series is based on. I don't own Bugs Bunny, Peter Pan, 101 Dalmatians, or the Jungle Book. I do own my usual suspects, though.

Reason Twenty-nine: Little surprises

_It's always something._

Christmas, oh what a wonderful thing Jayden and Raziya happily ruined for their classmates. They ruined it because Todd ruined it for them. Despite their genius, Jayden and Raziya did have childish hope and belief in magic to the degree that most children their age had, until they started thinking about things anyway. So, when Todd told them, along with their friends, that Santa did not exist and he explained why it was not possible, they had to believe him. He was right, so they had to tell all of their classmates that Santa did not exist; Mayah and Bokuden were doing the same thing.

Todd had told them that Santa did not exist because he honestly did not like some imaginary fat man getting all credit that their fantastic parents and grandparents deserved as far as Christmas went. He actually resented that Kim used to tell him that Santa was the one that brought the presents, but he forgave her as he understood that she was trying to provide a childhood for him that he sorely needed back then. Jayden and her crew did not need that, which was why he spilled the beans about Santa. They did not seem to mind either, being rather pragmatic for kids their age. Mayah had gone so far as to say she wondered why a fat guy was allowed do break and enter every house on the planet, even if he was not stealing anything. Jayden had always been stumped by flying reindeer, wondering why only those twelve could fly out of all of the reindeer in the world. Raziya had been skeptical on Santa once no one would tell her how he fit down a chimney. Bokuden wanted to know the basic question of how he delivered to houses without chimneys. They pretty much could only buy magic in a certain quantity and Santa seemed to have too much of it for them, so they accepted what Todd told them without much resistance.

The kids actually got in trouble for "killing" Santa. Their classmates went home and told their parents, who complained to the teachers, who called in the crew's parents only to discover something deep. None of the crew's parents cared. The two teachers called all of parents of Jayden, Raziya, Mayah, and Bokuden only to find that they were not very sympathetic to the fact that their kids might have ruined Christmas for two whole classes.

In fact, Shego and Betty had both hung up once they found out that why they were getting calls from their daughters' teachers. Dahntay had listened all the way through before deciding that at some point in time a kid was going to learn that Santa was not real and he did not understand why he was being harassed about Mayah just destroying a make-believe character. He remarked that he would be sure to discipline her when she started slandering Bugs Bunny.

Kim had not been in the best position to listen to something that she quickly understood was stupid. Jayden's teacher had called her while she was hanging over a very active volcano. She probably would have listened to what the teacher was talking about if it was important, but to tell her that Jayden had ruined Christmas for the class because she blabbed that there was no Santa Claus was not really taking her attention away from getting out of the volcano. She sort of brushed the teacher off, citing a very important matter that had her attention, which happened to be bad guys shooting at her while she was still hanging over the volcano. She disconnected the call without totally explaining why.

Felix did not answer his office phone when Raziya's teacher called him. He was swamped and had to prepare for a presentation to make sure that he did not lose his funding. He had no doubt that he was going to keep getting money for the simple fact that his project was moving along very well, but he still wanted to make a decent presentation to everyone. So, he did not bother with phone calls, unless they were coming from his wife.

Monique was doing work too, but she did answer the phone when the teacher called. She really had no sympathy for the kids that Raziya "ruined" Christmas for. She was glad that Todd told Raziya that Santa did not exist because she certainly would have gotten to it sooner or later. And if not her, Felix definitely would have done it. The only reason that they celebrated Christmas was because Raziya's friends did and they did not want her to feel left out.

Yori did apologize for Bokuden's behavior when she received the call from his teacher. She also gave the impression of brushing the teacher off, though. She was not trying to be that way, but Nobunaga was crying and she had a baby to tend to. Once she was certain that the teacher was not calling because Bokuden was injured or something like that, she did want to get off of the phone as soon as possible.

Ron had also apologized for Bokuden's behavior when the teacher called him. He did not understand why he had gotten such a phone call if the teacher called his wife, though. The others were of like mind on that. Was it really necessary for all of the parents to get a phone call over something like the kids telling their classmates that Santa did not exist? It really was not that serious and they all agreed on that.

The kids, of course, liked Christmas. Any holiday that called for them getting gifts was always great. Bokuden was actually glad to find out that he and his family were not going to Japan that year for Christmas, which had been working its way as a tradition for them. Yori's family came to them that year because no one wanted Nobunaga traveling at only two months old. Bokuden was glad that the family was coming to them, though. He liked his mother's side of the family just as much as he liked his father's side; they all typically saw Ron's family on Thanksgiving and they usually saw Yori's family over Christmas. He just disliked going to Japan.

Bokuden was happy that he did not go away because it snowed on Christmas. After opening presents and everything, Ron drove him over to Betty's house where all of his friends were playing in the backyard, making a snowman and things like that. They were all having fun and Bokuden was glad to join in, going over to the snowman with Jayden and Raziya. Ron joined in too, helping on the snowman like Kim and Monique were.

Shego and Betty were inside, but they had blinds open, so they could look out into the yard. They had been out there earlier, but Betty said that she wanted to talk to Shego, which was when they retreated into the house. The pale woman wondered what it was that her boss wanted to talk to her about.

"Shego…" Betty started to say and her voice sounded uncharacteristically weak. She even looked a little scared. "I think…I think I might be pregnant again," she admitted.

"How? Aren't you on the pill or some shit like that?" Shego inquired, not noting the severity of the situation; well, the severity that her friend seemed to be placing on the situation.

"You know…every now and then I forget to take it…" Betty confessed, still sounding rather feeble and frightened.

"You forget?" the pale woman asked in disbelief. She wished that Betty would forget other things, like the fact that all assignments needed to be presented as a written report.

"Well, you've done this job before! I get stressed and I forget sometimes, especially lately with the department expanding again," Betty explained and then she sighed. "I don't know what to do."

"Well, first, you should probably confirm you're pregnant and the next step would be to tell your husband," Shego replied while motioning outside to Dahntay, who was being mercilessly pelted with snowballs by his own son.

"Shego…what if I am?" the one-eyed woman asked, fearing strapping its way out of her throat to join her voice and show her apprehension to the idea.

"What do you mean, what if you are? You have the fucking baby, doy," the pale woman answered.

Shego knew better than anyone save Dahntay how Betty felt about possibly having another baby, especially now. Her age freaked her out with Aztek and what happened with him. Now there she was four years older and possibly having another child. But, if she was pregnant, all she could do was have the baby in Shego's opinion. It was not like Betty would want to even think about her other option.

"Do you think it'll be all right?" the brown-haired female asked.

"Bets, you did fine with Mayah and sure Aztek's nutty ass showed up early, but he's fine now. Really fine," Shego commented while pointing to the aforementioned boy, who now doing dives onto his father since Dahntay was lying in the snow.

"What if this one shows up early too?"

"Then you'll just have another Aztek on your hands. Bets, you worry over dumb things. Go to the doctor and get a confirmation before you freak out and then what you need to do is celebrate because you know you like having kids just as much as any of us," the green-skinned woman said.

Betty sighed. She hated that Shego made so much sense now. She could remember before the wife and kids and she knew that Shego would have just told her to stop whining and do whatever the hell she wanted. Now, Shego sat down and talked things out, like a normal friend, which Betty obviously needed at certain points. She glanced over at Shego and smiled a bit. Shego pretended not to see.

--------------

"Watch this," Jayden said to Raziya with a mischievous glint in her olive eyes.

Raziya was not sure what she was watching until Jayden took off and did a flying leap at the snowman that their parents were now solely working on. She almost jumped high enough to take the head clean off of the four-foot-high snowman. Kim, Ron, and Monique backed away as the little raven-haired munchkin came crashing into their creation.

"Way to go!" Raziya and Bokuden cheered loudly with pride.

"She just kicked in the chest cavity of our snowman," Ron complained, staring at their fallen hard work, crumbled in the dirt.

"Build another one so we can give it a go," Raziya urged the parents while pointing to herself and Bokuden, who nodded in agreement.

"They want us to build another snowman just so they could knock it down? Are they crazy?" Monique inquired.

Kim and Ron just looked at her to answer her question. Monique nodded, remembering who she was talking about now. Kim went to check on Jayden and brush the snow off of her. Jayden was fine though, and ran off before Kim could finish the job.

The raven-haired little girl decided to ambush her brother, who was being nice and making a snow angel with Mayah, even though he hated the idea of lying in cold snow. Also, being on the ground put him at risk for what happened, Jayden leaped on his stomach, doing a full belly-flop right on top of him. Todd coughed as his little sister landed on him.

"Jade, you suck," Todd groaned in agony. He supposed that it could have been worse since his little sister had no problem with putting her knees in his chest when he was lying down.

"Jade, get off!" Mayah shouted in a fury as she climbed to her feet and pushed Jayden off of the redheaded boy.

"Don't push me!" Jayden barked at Mayah.

"Don't jump on Smiley no more!" she barked back while falling to Todd's side.

Jayden came at Mayah before the caramel-skinned girl could do anything for Todd. Jayden tackled Mayah around the waist and they got to rumbling. Todd sat up and just laughed as the pair went at it. Kim and Dahntay watched the kids and then just decided to let them fight. They would work things out on their own, which the girls did.

After the fighting, Mayah and Jayden went back to playing in the snow with everyone else. They were all called in a little while later by Shego and Betty, who had prepared hot chocolate for everyone. Ron then popped in the "Snowman Hank" dvd that he had brought over for the kids to watch; the children loved the show just as much as Ron, which made him all the more upset that it had been canceled. Watching the kids made all of the parents smile, even though Betty was having her own mild crisis.

Betty decided to take advantage of Shego's good mood brought on by a great Christmas being celebrated by her family and she made Shego go with her to the doctor's office to confirm her pregnancy a few days later. It was a good way to spoil both of their moods because Betty found out that she was pregnant again and Shego knew that sometime in the summer, she was going to be back to working Betty's job. To make matters worse, the department had expanded. There was even a chance that they might be their own independent department by the summer, which only further pissed Shego off as she thought about it.

"Don't worry, you always do a great job when you're in charge," Betty told her friend while giving her an assuring pat on the shoulder.

"I won't worry if you won't. I mean, you and this kid are going to be just fine," Shego said with confidence.

"I hope so," the one-eyed woman muttered and she rubbed her flat abdomen. She always had no problem getting back in shape after she had her kids, even though her job was mostly sedentary in nature. She supposed that she was going to have to endure a workout again in a little less than a year's time to get her figure back once more.

"You'll be fine. Now, you get to home and tell your husband and nutty kids that there's going to be a new addition to your family and you don't mean that you guys are buying another dog," Shego remarked with a bit of a smile to help set her friend at ease.

Betty sighed and nodded. She figured that her husband and kids would be happy about things, but she was nervous. She was getting kind of old, in her opinion anyway, and she knew that the older a woman was, the higher the chances for something to go wrong with her pregnancy. She did not even want to think about what could go wrong now, especially after what happened with Aztek.

When Betty got home, she called a family meeting. Aztek was the first to show up, his hands were covered in white glue and he was giggling. Mayah followed, sporting an "I didn't do it" face, in case the meeting was because something was broken. Dahntay came in last, muttering about what the kids were doing with the school glue and how it definitely was not being used properly.

"What's up, Ma?" Aztek inquired in his odd, high pitch voice. He did not sound like Dahntay, but his voice was definitely up there as far as tones went. He was soft-spoken for the most part, which contrasted with Mayah's loud, commanding tone.

"I've got an announcement for you all," Betty replied.

"We can have pizza for dinner?" Mayah asked in a hopeful tone.

"No, we're not having pizza for dinner," Betty answered and the girl pouted because of that. Betty continued on. "I went to the doctor today—" she tried to say.

"Why? Are ya sick?" the children asked with concern. What would they do if their mother was sick? Well, they were pretty sure their father would fix their mother and there was a higher chance of them getting pizza for dinner. Hmm, the situation suddenly did not seem so bleak. Betty would be surprised to find out that her children were willing to compromise her health for pizza.

"I'm not sick. It turns out, I'm going to have another baby," Betty announced. Her husband looked shocked; she might as well have said the western hemisphere of the planet sunk into the sea considering his expression.

"Hey, be a sister in there, okay!" Mayah yelled at her mother's stomach and then had the nerve to poke her. "Okay?" she repeated, just for her new sibling to understand that it better be a sister.

"Can I touch it?" Aztek requested.

"Not with those hands, buddy-boy," Betty remarked quite seriously, as his hands were still covered in glue and then she turned her attention to her husband. "Why the hell do his hands look like that anyway? I leave you alone for an afternoon and you let them do this damn glue thing again?"

"It could've been worse. She didn't even try to pour it in his mouth this time," Dahntay replied in his own defense. It was the best that he could come up with considering the fact that all he had to do was leave their kids alone for a minute and one of them was bound to do something mean to the other one.

Betty just shook her head. She and Dahntay eyed each other for a moment. He was not surprised really that she was pregnant again. He noticed how she was with those birth control pills. He had to remind her a few times to take them and sometimes she would just wave him off, as if she would do it later. He was well aware that he was going to have to be extra-supportive because he knew how she felt about being pregnant again. He knew the fear that ate away inside of her.

"We'll make it through this," the former thief promised his wife and he embraced her. Betty appreciated the hug and returned it. Mayah got into the act just because it seemed to be the right thing to do, so she hugged her parents around the legs. Aztek was not looking to be left out and join in too, getting glue on everyone. He was such a dirty kid, they all thought.

----(New day)

"How in the hell do they all have the chicken pox at the same time?" Monique groaned into the phone in sheer disbelief. She was on the phone with four other concerned mothers, Kim, Yori, Shego, and Betty.

"They all go to the same nasty ass school," Shego pointed out and her attention was drawn from the phone to her daughter. "Jade, what the fuck did I say about scratching?"

"But, it itches!" Jade whined while dramatically collapsing to the living room floor, which was where their whole family was holed up.

"Sounds like Jade is acting just like Mayah," Betty commented.

"Ron had to tie Bo to bed to keep him from rolling around on his carpet like a dog trying to stop the itching," Yori reported with a sigh.

"That boy needs help," Monique muttered.

"No didn't catch it, did he?" Kim asked Yori curiously.

"No, I'm glad he didn't. We've been keeping him away from Bo, so he hopefully won't get it," Yori explained.

"So, what do you guys want to do? We could gather them all under one roof and let them gripe and moan together?" Betty proposed.

"Kim and Shego's house," Monique and Yori volunteered at the same time.

"I agree. It's settled," Betty stated.

"How the fuck is that settled? I didn't agree to that shit," Shego pointed out in a slightly heated tone.

"Democratic vote. Majority wins. Besides, the kids like your house the best because of the snakes," Betty countered as if that made everything all right.

"Princess, we're getting rid of those snakes," Shego commented.

"We can't! And the kids aren't going near any of the animals in this house while they're sick," Kim stated soundly. She was not about to risk anything in her collection getting ill while being handled by infected children.

"We're still bringing them over," Monique said.

"All right, but you guys better stick around. I'm not watching a bunch of sick psychopaths," Shego remarked.

"Hey, at least now they're not so quick and you typically hear them coming since they're always moaning about it itches," Monique quipped.

The other ladies laughed, even though they were not very much enjoying the fact that their babies were miserable. They all disconnected the phone call and met up at Kim and Shego's house. The little ones were all happy to see each other and everyone greeted each other with "It itches!"

The children were all in their pajamas and were regulated into the living room, which was where Jayden had been originally. Todd was in there too, also suffering from the chicken pox because he never got when he was younger and thanks to his sister, he had it now. Todd was lying on the sofa with his pajamas on, which were just black basketball shorts and a dingy maroon football jersey. He looked like he was going through Hell, which was slightly because he had a bit of a fever, but he was the very definition of miserable at the moment.

"Poor Smiley," Monique commented when she caught sight of him. She did not think he would have the illness as bad as he did, but if he felt anything like how he looked, well, she just pitied him.

"Don't pity him. That's what the big baby is looking for," Shego stated gruffly.

"Besides, Shego was practically cradling him before you guys came in," Kim said with a huge grin.

"Shut up," the pale woman huffed and she slightly shoved her spouse for revealing such top secret information.

"Let's get those maniacs settled in," Betty suggested, talking about the kids. The other ladies nodded.

They all went into the living room to find Jayden and Mayah fighting already, even though everything on their bodies itched. Mayah got offended because Jayden kept touching Todd, who swatted weakly at his little sister with the hope that she would go away and stop bothering him. So, they ended up getting in a brawl. Betty separated the pair without any words and they just knew better than to go at each other again.

Yori had to handle Bokuden, who was rolling around on the carpet, trying his best to scratch his rash without actually touching it. He figured that if he did not touch it, he could not be scolded for scratching. It did not work out.

"But, it itches so much!" Bokuden practically cried. His pajamas were a plain tee-shirt and grey sweat pants. He had refused to put on any of his good pajamas because he did not want to contaminate them with his chicken pox.

"I know, but you mustn't scratch," Yori reminded him and she picked him up with the hope of bringing him some comfort.

Monique had to pull Raziya away from Aztek, who was scratching Raziya more than likely to be annoying, but he was just helping her out as far as Raziya was concerned, which might explain why she was not yelling at him. Raziya's favorite pastime when Aztek was nearby was to scream at him for whatever nonsense he was into; he did not make it hard.

The kids were straightened out by settling them down on the floor. They each had blankets of their own for them to relax without incidents happening and their mothers all put mittens on their hands to make sure that no one did any scratching. There was plenty of wiggling going on the floor as the group watched Peter Pan, their collective all-time favorite movie. Peter Pan was followed by the cartoon movie of 101 Dalmatians, their second all-time favorite movie. And that was followed by the cartoon movie of the Jungle Book.

Throughout the day, the mothers all made sure that the kids got plenty of liquids. They gave the kids calamine lotion to sooth the itching, which the kids swore to heaven and back did not work. They all complained that they must not be getting enough, but no matter how much lotion that they received, it never seemed to work. The kids concluded that their parents had been gypped at the store and the lotion was faulty.

After the three movies, the kids fell asleep. That fact made Todd happy because it meant that he could go to sleep without having to worry if Jayden was going to touch him in his sleep. So, Todd fell asleep too, looking just as miserable in his sleep as he did when he was awake.

--------------

"So, you mean to tell me that your department doesn't blow up when you and Shego aren't there?" Monique joked, speaking to Betty. They had all retreated into the kitchen to avoid accidentally waking up the children.

"We do get normal days off like the rest of the world," the one-eyed woman commented. "Not that you guys know anything about regular jobs."

"Hey, Mo once had a regular job," Kim defended her friend. She was sitting off to the side while the others were at the kitchen table. She had a bunch of papers in her hands that she was also going through while talking to them.

"A kick ass regular job," Monique added. "But, nothing kicks more ass than what I do now."

"You mean sit on your ass all day?" Shego teased.

"You're just mad because you don't get to do that," Monique countered.

"Speaking of sitting on your ass, Princess, what the hell are you doing?" Shego asked curiously as she turned her attention to her mate. Everyone else looked down at Kim too because they were just as curious.

"Science?" Yori guessed.

"For once, nope. I actually left all of my notes at the lab when they called the other day and told me that Jade was sick. No, this is something I've been sitting on for a while," the redhead answered.

"Which is?" Betty pressed the issue.

"These guys want to make a television show based on my life," Kim answered.

"Based on your life?" Betty echoed incredulously. Who would want to watch a show about such a brat?

"Yeah, based on my life. I've been putting off looking at the first proposal because then I have to meet with them and all kinds of stuff and I don't know if I want to go through with it," the hero explained.

"Well, if you do, are we going to be in it?" Monique inquired.

"I don't know yet. I don't know much about this. I'm taking the time to look at it now because I don't have my notes with me to do any work on my venoms or my antivenin thanks to school calling me and making it seem like Jade died in the classroom," Kim answered.

"They made it seem the same with Bo," Yori commented with a nod. "I was so worried that I ran out of the school without explaining why," she added. She taught physics part-time at a high school while also working on a theoretical equation. She wanted to get into experimental physics, but she would rather not do that with her sons around and she did not want to lose any time with the boys anyway.

"I actually thought Felix would get out of his chair and run to the school when they called us," Monique remarked.

"Oh, you were both home?" Yori asked.

"Yeah, Felix decided to do some work at home that day. I think they scared him off because he hasn't even talked about doing work at home since," Monique commented with a bit of a laugh.

"I'm glad they called Dahntay. He told me how they made it sound and I know I would've run through my office door to get to Mayah," Betty said.

"How long do the chicken pox last?" Yori inquired curiously.

"You never had them before?" Shego asked the Japanese female.

"No," Yori answered. She was glad that Ron knew what the rash was on Bokuden and how to treat it for the most part because she had no clue. She had never had or even seen the chicken pox.

"They don't last that long, just a few days. We should keep them home for a couple of days after it seems like it's gone, though. We don't want to chance infecting other kids," Betty stated.

"Why don't we? Some little bastard at that school gave it them," Shego pointed out.

"Let's be the bigger people then," Betty argued.

Shego was about to argue, but they some noise from in the living room. They decided to go check it out, even though they doubted that the kids were up so soon; even if they were up, they would have made more noise. Still, they went to go check and there they found Aztek pouring whole bottle of calamine lotion on himself, head first. They shook their heads.

"Tek is a dirt bomb," Shego stated and she felt that was a stone cold fact.

Aztek looked over at the adults and did not even have the courtesy to appear ashamed for his actions, which he was fairly certain were wrong. He just wanted the itching to stop and he wanted to see if the lotion actually worked. So, the plan was to cover his whole body in it, although he had not taken off his pajamas before pouring the lotion.

Betty closed her eye for a moment; what was she going to do with Aztek? And to think, she might be carrying another one of him. Parenting was an adventure and it did not get any easier when the other kids woke up.

----(New day)

Bokuden seemed to be done with the chicken pox, which made his parents happy. They were also pleased that Nobunaga had not caught the illness. They thought that they had done well until Yori complained of feeling sick and then one day, everything on her body seemed to itch.

"You got the chicken pox!" Ron shouted in disbelief, speaking to his wife.

Yori groaned. Ron actually panicked for a while because he knew that it was bad for adults to get the chicken pox, but Yori's case was mild. Yori finally understood Bokuden's plight though. Everything itched and she wanted to scratch so badly. She often gave into the temptation to the point where Ron ended up putting mittens on her hands to prevent her from scratching. She hoped that she was fine in a few days too because she could not take it.

--------------

Next time: Meet Betty's third child and Shego gets a promotion and Kim wants to celebrate.


	30. Reason Thirty: Taken away

I don't own these characters. I don't own the original premise this saga is based on. I don't own He-man. I don't own Tekken. I don't own Naruto.

Reason Thirty: Taken away

_In light of our responsibilities, we still shouldn't neglect each other…_

Shego's third stint as interim chief was even more annoying than the first two. It happened because the department was expanding into its own independent force, completely separate from the police department, so there was a lot to do. The change was taking place because the department was very efficient in stopping insane villains from plundering or trying to conquer the city, but there were still more scoundrels coming out of the woodworks. There was also another department opening on the other side of the city, which Shego hated to consider, but Betty might actually decide to put her in charge of the bunch across town. She was not going to accept that because she could not imagine doing the job that she had now until she retired.

The pale woman had to stay on the phone a lot with Betty while the one-eyed woman was out on leave because she needed directions on what moves to make and Betty wanted almost minute-by-minute reports on what was going on. Shego was holding off on all the phone calls for the past few days, though. Betty had just given birth to her second son; she had carried him full term with no complications in her labor, so it would seem that she had been scared for nothing.

Betty named her new son, Romah. Staying with her tradition, he was named after a famous empire, the Roman Empire, and the empire's name was spelled wrong. He was a chocolate-skinned, onyx-eyed fat-boy; the last part was according to Shego. He was ten pounds and everyone agreed that was pretty fat. In fact, they did not see how Betty managed to push him out.

Mayah had been upset with Romah's arrival. She had wanted a baby sister and had been pushing for that since the day that she found out her mother was carrying a baby. It had been her experience that little brothers were dirty, irksome, little creatures and she did not want another on in the house. But, she could see that it was unavoidable now, although she had suggested that her mother trade in the new baby for a little girl. She knew that they could not do that, but she just wanted to put it out there in case it could be done. All she did was start trouble because Aztek chimed in, figuring if they could trade the baby in then they should also trade Mayah in for an older brother. Needless to say, Mayah did not take that well and ended up tying her brother to the banister of the stairs in their home. That would teach him to try to get rid of her, she thought.

Betty went back to work almost immediately after she had Romah, which was fine by Dahntay. He understood that she had a lot going on with her division and he believed that it was best for her to be there to take charge. Besides, he knew that she would drive him crazy if she stayed home while her creation was becoming its own force.

The one-eyed woman was glad that Dahntay was so understanding because she really did want to get back to her job and take command once again to make sure that everything went exactly how she wanted it, even though she had no doubt that Shego was taking care of everything. She just hoped that Shego did not trash her office again like before. She wanted to get that mad-woman out of her office as soon as possible just as much as she wanted to be there to be in charge.

When she entered her office, she discovered Shego hidden behind a pile of folders. She could hear her friend on the phone, cursing someone out quite furiously. She just listened for a few seconds. The poor bastard on the phone with her friend was being torn a new one all right. It made her smile; she was glad that Shego was so tough with the people that she had to deal with. They needed someone rough telling them off.

"Fucking asshole," Shego grumbled as she got off the phone, slamming the receiver into the cradle.

"I'm sure he was," Betty remarked, which got her replacement's attention. Shego stood up to make sure that she was hearing right and not having a hallucination.

"Bets, you're back or are you here to just check on me?" Shego inquired curiously while flopping back into the chair, as if she wanted to be there. Betty had only just had the baby a week ago, after all. She did not think that the real boss would be back so soon, even though she knew that Betty would want to, almost need to be at the office for everything that was going on.

"I'm back. Can't let this place go global without me," the one-eyed woman remarked with a lighthearted smile.

"I think it's going cross-town, but I'll let you dream," the raven-haired agent quipped with a smirk.

"Anyway, I'm here to jump into this thing, so get up and get the hell out," Betty commanded while pointing to the door with her thumb. "Don't let the doorknob hit you on the way out. I don't want ass prints on the handle," she added.

"Hardy, har, har. I see your standup act hasn't improved since you've been gone," Shego replied while standing up. "That's why I made sure to save all of the paperwork for you," she commented.

Betty laughed a little bit. Shego walked over to the boss, pausing for a second to look at the older woman. Shego was about to walk out, but the returning chief halted her. Shego wondered what was up while Betty went to sit down at her desk. She then turned her attention to the green-skinned woman.

"Shego, we're about to be our own independent force, have a new headquarters, and have another force under us," Betty stated.

"I know. I was here while you were setting things up, if you recall. Or is your mind going in your old age?" Shego teased, smirking to be a pest.

"I need you now more than ever," Betty pointed out in a rare moment of honesty and seriousness between them.

"I know, Bets," Shego replied with a shrug. "I'm never going to say this again, but you know I'm here for you."

"So, if I tell you I want you to take charge of the new branch?"

"I would tell you to shove the offer up your ass after you manage to get your head out of there," the pale woman answered honestly.

"I figured as much. You've got to help me out, though."

"I will help, in the best way I can. I catch bad guys, Bets. You know that. I kick ass. That's what I do," Shego pointed out.

"I want to use you for different things, though. You've got talents we're not using," Betty said what she thought was obvious, but her friend had the nerve to appear skeptical.

"Like?"

"Like how you used to be a master thief. We need to exploit that. I want you to start teaching new recruits," Betty proposed. She wanted to train her personnel to start thinking like the people they chased after and Shego was the prime candidate to teach the staff how to do that. It would make them a more effective force.

"No, no, no. Don't do this to me. You know how I feel about rookie scum. They think they know everything and you get pissed at me when I throw them into walls or burn off their eyebrows," Shego objected to the plan.

"We have to shape this department up, especially since it's going to be independent. We're going to have to be the utmost professionals and do our jobs to the best of our abilities. I need to use you in a different way. I'll let you still go out on assignments, but we have to use you in a more efficient manner. So, think of some things that you can do for the department when we expand because you're not going to be a regular agent anymore."

"Sounds like a promotion to me," the emerald-eyed officer commented.

"Of course it's a promotion, you idiot. If anything you're going to be apart of a staff that works right under me. You're also going to have to help me find such a staff. As you know, the pool we have around here frightens me," Betty remarked.

"Trust me, they're just as scared of you as you are of them. So, what does this promotion involve?" Shego asked curiously.

"The usual crap."

"And an office?" Shego said. She had always wanted her own office, ever since she started working on the straight and narrow anyway. She was never sure what she would put in it, but it would keep her away from the idiots that she worked with. Now, it was even better because she could put pictures of her little family in there. That would be great, she thought; damn it, she was so sentimental now.

Betty sucked her teeth. "Yes, you'll get an office as soon as we get the new building. We're going to have to reorganize everything and stuff. This is going to be a nightmare," she sighed.

"You're going to love every second of it," the younger woman commented with a smirk.

"That I am," Betty agreed with a smile. Her brain child was becoming an independent agency with two working divisions. She was going to be totally in charge of a crime fighting organization soon enough. It was going to be wonderful.

"Hey, do I get a new rank?" Shego asked out of the blue.

"Does the rank really matter?" Betty countered. Shego practically carried herself as if she was in charge no matter what.

"Hmm…how about Major General?"

"I think you'll want to join the army for that rank. You're probably going to have a whole new job title and no, it can't be 'master of the universe.' You're not He-man," Betty remarked.

"But, Shego: Master of the Universe has such a nice ring to it," the green-skinned woman quipped with a smile.

"Only to your sick ears," Betty replied. "Well, maybe you and your brat's ears. I'm sure you could get her to call you that."

"I tried it once. She didn't go for it," Shego said, looking rather amused.

"She's not as dumb as I thought then. I'll bet she'll be happy when all this is said and done. You'll be making more money, which will give her a chance to goof off more," Betty commented.

Shego only nodded a bit. More money was the main reason that she did not fight Betty harder on the promotion idea. Todd was going to be going to college in a few years and they needed to have extra money squirreled away for him, even though Kim swore to the heavens that their son was going to get a big scholarship; Todd swore the same thing too. Still, just in case that did not happen, they needed to have money put away for the boy, which Kim actually did, but more money never hurt anyone.

"This promotion should be good for you, though," Betty said out of the blue.

"Why do you say that?" Shego asked curiously.

"The things I have in mind would take you out of harm's way. You do have a family that you should worry about, yet you're always out in the field acting like a crazy twenty year old," Betty replied.

"Bets, just shut up," Shego stated with an attitude. She did not like that her friend was making it seem as if she was just totally reckless when she went out. She always thought of her family when she was out there battling insane villains. She always made sure to walk away from any of her fights because she had a family to get to.

"All right, all right. Don't go anywhere, though. I do need you to fill me on about anything that happened while I was out and you didn't tell me about over the phone. I'd also like to get a better idea on what you'd like to do once we're totally independent and situated in our new headquarters," Betty explained.

Shego nodded and pulled up an empty seat. She had a feeling that she had just been recruited in as Betty's assistant and she was right. She was now working on the expansion project with Betty as pretty much her right hand man, so to speak. She had a feeling that her promotion might be a little something like that; she was going to have to make sure that was not true. She was no one's sidekick, after all.

--------------

"Mommy!" Jayden cheered as she heard the front door open.

Shego braced herself as her wife and daughter hit her at the same time. The two olive-eyed females embraced Shego rather tightly. Shego smiled a bit and returned both hugs. Kim let her go and Shego bent down to pick up Jayden, who grinned.

"Mommy, today Mom took me swimming with Smiley and Smiley nearly drowned!" Jayden reported loudly with excitement sparkling in her eyes.

"I didn't!" Todd objected from upstairs. He was in his room, putting together a two foot tall skeletal model of a woolly mammoth. His grandparents were under the impression that he liked all animals from the ice age since he liked smilodon and they sent him things often that related to that time period. Because of that, he was actually getting very interested in prehistoric creatures.

"He did," Jayden insisted while nodding.

"Smiley always almost drowns," Shego commented with a bit of a laugh. That boy was not built for the water, she noted a long time ago. Maybe he just had a dense body structure or something.

"He does," Jayden agreed with an amused laugh.

"So, how was your day, sweetie?" Kim inquired.

"Crazy. Betty finally came back to work. She's not letting me go back to my usual duties, though. She's going to promote me," Shego answered, sounding slightly resentful of the promotion. Her tone went right by her petite mate.

"That's great!" Kim shouted with joy. She would have embraced her spouse, but Shego had Jayden and their daughter was a good shield.

"Ah, it's not that great. We've got to hammer out the details, but she's talking about letting me do whatever. She just wants to find something that I like and that helps out the department," Shego explained.

"Then that is great! We should go out and celebrate," Kim suggested.

"Go out?" Todd echoed. Suddenly, he was on the stairs and quite interested in what was going on. He hoped that pizza was involved in going out.

"We don't need to do all that," Shego objected.

"Oh, J. P. Barrymore's!" Jayden cheered and her parents cringed.

"No, no! No singing bear!" Shego protested loudly. She really wished that they would just get banned from that place already. Between the kids, her, and Betty, someone really just needed to tell them that they could never set foot in that place again. Maybe the staff was too scared to say anything though.

"But, I like the singing bear, Mommy!" Jayden replied.

"Jade, baby, it's Mommy's special night, so Mommy should get to decide where we go," Kim pointed out.

"Can it involve pizza or hamburgers?" Todd hoped, even though he would eat just about anything as long as it was called "food."

"Want to go to Ron's place?" Kim offered. She was pretty sure that her spouse had never been to her best friend's restaurant and she thought that would be a good place for them to go. It was a family restaurant with great food and they were not likely to be thrown out should Todd or Jayden behave, well, like they often did.

"Is he going to be there?" Shego countered.

"Don't be a kill-joy, honey. Ron's restaurant is the best and he runs it well," Kim boasted.

"Yeah, he makes this shrimp there…" Todd did not even finish his thought and just started daydreaming about the shrimp that Ron made. "We have to go!" he agreed after a few seconds. He needed that shrimp now.

"The promotion isn't even final yet," Shego pointed out, hoping to get out of the celebration. She was not even sure if she wanted the job, yet they were already celebrating for her.

"You'll get it," Kim stated with confidence. "So, let's all go out to Ron's restaurant. You'll like it," the redheaded hero promised her wife.

Shego rolled her eyes; she doubted that she would like it, even if the kids seemed enthused about everything. She looked down at her family and found herself being ambushed. They were all doing that infernal, damned puppy-dog pout!

"Fine, we'll go," Shego yielded with a sigh.

"Yes!" the children cheered. Todd could already taste those shrimp, along with several other dishes that Ron kicked ass in cooking.

Shego sighed again and looked down at her petite wife. Kim smiled impishly, as if telling her that everything would be all right. The pale woman did not argue or protest any further.

--------------

Shego was a little shocked at the size of Ron's restaurant. Apparently, he was doing all right for himself. She was surprised that the place did not have one of those animal bands like at J.P Barrymore's pizza partytorium considering how much Ron seemed to like the place, but his restaurant was just a normal looking eatery, but it was not lacking a theme. He had large fish tanks through out the whole restaurant with all sorts of fish inside of them. Those creatures were not for eating, which Jayden liked because she had gone to naming most of the fish for Ron with the help of Bokuden.

The family was seated immediately, even though there was a short wait. It was just that Kim was recognized as the boss' best friend and they did not have to wait because of that. The family was taken to a booth for Jayden to be close to one of the fish tanks, which immediately got her attention. She stood in her sit and leaned against the glass, which she knew she was not supposed to do, but she liked doing it until someone told her to stop.

"Jayden, sit your little ass down," Shego ordered in a bit of a gentle tone.

"I'm not little," Jayden objected while flopping down into her seat.

"You're a midget," Todd teased.

"You're an asshole," the girl countered in the same tone that most children would use to call someone a doo-doo head.

"I try my best," he replied with a wide grin.

The kids would have gone back and forth for a while, but the menus were brought over. While everyone looked to see what they were going to order, Kim excused herself. She wanted to see if Ron was around, which she was happy to find out he was. He was in the kitchen, preparing one of his specialties, which she let him finish before starting a conversation with him.

"Hey, K.P. Todd bugging you about the shrimp again?" Ron inquired with a teasing smile. He figured that one of the reasons that Kim would be at his restaurant was because Todd seemed to be addicted to certain foods that he made; the shrimp was at the top of the long list. Todd alone made him feel proud and happy with his work.

"We decided to bring Shego here to celebrate her promotion at work," Kim explained with a bit of a smile herself.

He laughed. "And I bet she's the one that doesn't want to be here."

"I'm sure once she has the food, she'll change her mind. Tell me, what would you think about watching the kids for me for one night?" Kim asked.

"I wouldn't mind. Gives me a chance to beat Todd in some Tekken. He thinks he so hot at that game," Ron answered. "I'm guessing you want to celebrate in a more adult way with Shego," he remarked with a sly smile.

Kim smiled a bit. "Well, it would be nice."

"Yeah, so no problem. I just got to warn Yori that we'll be hosting your tornados because once you put Jade with Bo…well, you know," he commented with a lighthearted laugh.

"Well, at least without Razi being around you know they won't be trying any surgery," the redhead remarked.

"Which is good considering they kill Bo most of the time."

"At least they don't want to be doctors when they grow up," Kim said and Ron laughed.

"That's true or we'd all have to worry, especially about malpractice bills. So, when do you want me to take them? Tomorrow's kind of good actually. I'm not going to be here tomorrow because I was going to hang out with the boys anyway. So, I can even come and pick up your monsters and take them out with me," Ron explained.

"That should be good. They love going out with you anyway."

"Because I'm fun, duh," Ron pointed out.

Kim laughed a bit. Ron had to be fun because the kids all liked going out with him more than anyone else it seemed. They always cheered whenever Ron showed up out of the blue and announced that he was going to somewhere. Ron beat Kim out, even when she had snakes in the deal. It probably had something to do with the fact that Ron liked going to J. P Barrymore's pizza partytorium as much as the kids and was not known to beat up on the animal band or the irksome employees like Betty, Shego, Monique, and Felix; the latter two often got into it verbally with people while the former two got into it verbally and physically.

The best friends continued to talk for a few minutes before Ron got another call for one of his specialties and he got to work. Kim returned to her family, having faith that Shego ordered spaghetti for her, which the green-skinned woman did. There was a catch though, and Kim noticed it immediately.

"Jade, are you eating my food?" Kim asked curiously as she sat down. Jayden was leaning over from her seat and just brazenly eating the plate that was in front of Kim.

"Well, you weren't here, it was getting cold, and I ate mine's already," Jayden explained in a "doy" kind of tone. She did not seem ashamed at all that she was just eating her mother's spaghetti. The catch was that Jayden loved pasta as much as Kim did and leaving her around an untouched plate for certain amount of time meant that Jayden was going to dig in.

"You ate a whole plate of spaghetti that quickly?" the hero asked in disbelief.

"Hey, that is your daughter," Shego pointed out with a laugh. It tickled her whenever Jayden did something that was so much like Kim that it actually got on Kim's nerves instead of on her nerves.

"And stop eating while I'm sitting right here," Kim ordered the child, who was still just digging in as if it was her food.

Jayden grinned widely as an apology and Kim yielded the food to the child, which made Jayden grin even more. Kim ordered another plate of spaghetti and another glass of soda because it seemed that Todd decided to commandeer her drink while she was gone. He knew that he had better drink as much soda as he could while they were out because that once they got home, his She-she was going to end all of their soda intake for the night. He had come to understand that she thought the sugar made them all hyper. He was under the impression that Kimmie made them hyper, but he did not know what her excuse was.

Shego just watched the whole thing, rather amused with her family. She was happy that they had come out already. She had to admit that the food helped. She had ordered some grilled chicken and whatever sauce it was that they put on it certainly added a brilliant zing to the meal. The rice and steamed vegetables on the side were good too. Okay, she silently conceded, the little blonde buffoon ran a kick-ass restaurant as far as food and service went.

They did have a normal outing for their family, which meant that they attracted a bit of attention, mostly thanks to the kids. Todd and Jayden started going back and forth over the fact that Todd wanted to eat Jayden's dessert. It was clear that the girl was full and was not going to finish the large piece of pound cake. Jayden just was not in the mood to share with her older brother and put up quite a fuss over it. The worst part was through all of their huffing, and cursing on Jayden's end, she eventually gave him the cake because she knew that she was not going to eat it. Todd actually thanked her after all of that mess.

----(Next day)

Kim did not tell Shego that Ron was going to take the kids for the night. She did not even tell the kids that they would be spending the night with Ron until he showed up just so they could not spill the beans to Shego; Jayden was good for telling a secret by accident. The kids were happy about it when she finally informed them, though.

"Oh, you're going down in Tekken tonight!" Todd informed Ron when he came into the house.

"In your dreams," Ron replied while rolling his eyes.

Kim helped the kids pack for their night with Ron. She also wished Ron luck, which he waved off. He left with the pair, everyone smiling about it. Todd was looking forward to playing Tekken all night while Jayden was just looking forward to playing with Bokuden.

Ron lived in house now, which was not too far from Kim and Shego's house. As soon as they arrived, Jayden kicked her shoes off and made a mad dash for Bokuden's room. Todd and Ron took their shoes off too and they went right to the living room to play video games.

Yori heard the commotion, so she did come out to see what was going on. She went to Bokuden's room first and found him with Jayden. They were playing with his toys, which were mostly Naruto toys. Jayden was not picky when it came to stuff to play with, especially if it gave her a chance to do some fighting.

Yori did not bother the children since they were being quiet, by their standards anyway. She went into the living room to see Ron and Todd getting into their Tekken tournament. She knew that could and probably would last all night; she wished that they had done something outside before wasting away in front of the television. She had seen them go at it when Felix was around too and Todd had to literally be dragged out of the living room well after midnight by his mothers. It was a bizarre sight.

Yori was distracted when she heard crying going on and she guessed that Nobunaga woke up from his nap. She went and tended to him. She then took him into the living room because he was actually fascinated with video games. She guessed that he liked all of the movement and colors when it came to games since he was not even a year old yet.

She stayed in the living room, knowing that Ron would not keep the best eye on Nobunaga while he was playing video games. Nobunaga was like Bokuden when he was a baby. The kid just liked wandering and he would crawl into things, like walls or the coffee table. He never cried; he just turned around and when into another direction until he hit another obstacle.

So, Yori curled up on the sofa with a book while Ron and Todd battled it out in Tekken. She guessed that they could order some pizza for dinner; she knew that would make the kids happy. The kids were always looking for an excuse to have pizza for dinner. She just hoped that things stayed as relatively peaceful as they were.

--------------

Shego entered her home and was shocked because she was not hit with tackling hugs from anyone. The house was dark and gave off a vibe of emptiness. Maybe Kim took the kids out, like she had been doing all summer long. She did call out of her Princess just in case while she was taking off her shoes.

There was no answer. She turned on the lights and walked through the house, finding that there was no one around. Satisfied that she was alone, she went to go take her shower and get settled in.

While Shego was in the shower, Kim silently slipped into the house. She had gone out for some supplies that they surprisingly lacked at home. Well, it really was not much of a surprise considering how she and Todd ate everything within sight and they hunted for things that were not in view. She knew that Shego was home because her car was in the drive, so she knew that she had to be quiet and discreet if she wanted to keep the element of surprise.

She hid some of her supplies and then went to hide herself. She listened as Shego got out of the shower and went into the bedroom, putting on house clothes undoubtedly. While Shego was in the bedroom, she slipped into the bathroom upstairs. The upstairs bathroom was the better one of the two full bathrooms that they had. It was larger with a bigger bathtub, which was a high level, diamond-shaped tub.

Kim began setting everything up, but she could not start the water until she knew that it would not attract Shego's attention. She waited for a few minutes and then she could hear the television blasting. It would seem that Shego found a nice action movie to watch; it probably helped that Kim left a stack of her spouse's favorite loud movies out in plain view.

Once the movie was really going, Kim began the final stage of what was only the start of the evening. When everything was said and done, she made sure to make some noise. She easily got Shego's attention.

"What the fuck?" the green-skinned woman wondered as she heard something drop upstairs. She paused her movie and decided to go inspect the scene.

She cautiously approached the door of the bathroom because she could hear more noise coming from in there. She noticed that the door was slightly ajar, a dull light sipping from the crack. She pressed herself against the wall and gave the door a gentle push. She did not bother waiting for a reaction and she stepped into the bathroom to have her jaw practically hit the floor.

There were candles illuminating the bathroom, all around the room. Her wife was standing by the tub in a short robe and two glasses in her hand. There was a bottle of champagne resting on the side of the tub next to more candles.

"Pumpkin," Shego breathed out the name.

"Care to join me?" Kim asked with a sexy smirk.

Shego scoffed; did she even have to ask? Shego practically jumped out of her clothing and then she slowly removed Kim's robe, which was more to get on Kim's nerves than anything else; it worked. The redheaded hero was eager to get into the tub, which was full of bubbles and skin softeners to make the bath as comfortable as possible.

When they got into the hot water, Shego moved to lean against the wall that the tub was situated against. Kim poured them both a drink, handing one glass to her spouse when it was halfway full. The slender hero toasted to Shego's promotion, just to let Shego know what they were celebrating. The pale woman could care less than nothing about the reason; she was just enjoying the moment.

They never even finished the half-glasses of champagne that they had. Kim attacked after a sip, which she only had because of the toast. Shego did not resist in the slightest. They shared a deep, passionate kiss that was way hotter than the water that they were currently sitting in.

"Wait," Shego said as she pulled away because she remembered something important.

"What, wait? Why?" Kim inquired while trying her best to go into for another kiss, but she was being denied.

"Where the fuck are the kids?" Shego asked with a puzzled expression gracing her elegant features.

"Ron and Yori took them for the night," the scientist answered.

Shego just nodded; it was all she needed to know. The kids were safe and they were going to be gone for the whole night. Now, she could really enjoy herself without any worries. She leaned down, starting a new kiss. Her hands began exploring the redhead's body with gentle pressure, causing Kim to lean in for more.

The kissing and groping session went on until the water got cold and most of the candles were about half the size they used to be. Shego was going to just heat it back up with her powers, but Kim wanted to get out. Shego did not argue and followed Kim out of the tub.

"Go to the room and I'll be there in a second," Kim instructed Shego.

The raven-haired female could guess what Kim was going to do next, but she did not say anything. She just did as Kim said and she went to the bedroom after drying herself off. She felt a bit odd walking through the house nude, almost like she was scared Todd or Jayden might pop up out of nowhere and then they would both be scarred for life. But, the kids did not show up and she made it to the room safely.

She sat down on the bed and waited for Kim, who was busy blowing out the candles in the bathroom to make sure that they did not have an accidental fire. The green-skinned woman wondered if she should strike a provocative pose just to get more into the spirit of the evening. She went through several, not sure which one Kim would appreciate more. It took her a few poses to realize that she had an audience.

Kim was just standing in the doorway with a bag in one hand, a bowl in the other, and her mouth was practically on the floor. She had been standing there for five poses, each outstanding in her opinion. Shego did not let that bother her and just remained in the position that she was in; she was lying on her stomach with her head resting in her right hand, her middle finger was touching the tip of her tongue, and her left leg bent, so that it was in the air. She beckoned Kim to her with her left index finger. Kim could only nod and obey, as if she was under a spell.

"What's this you got here, Princess?" Shego asked curiously while taking the bag from the redhead.

"Stuff…" Kim answered as if she could not remember what it was. The only thing that was on her mind now was Shego posing. She might never function properly mentally again.

"What kind of stuff?" Shego inquired with an amused smile. It was nice to still have such an affect on Kim, even after so many years together.

"I don't know," Kim replied honestly. She hardly knew that she was carrying anything at all. She just wished that her spouse would go back to striking such scandalous poses.

"Well, let's have a look," Shego commented and she peered into the bag. She was not surprised to see a squeeze bottle of honey, a canister of whipped cream, a bottle of chocolate syrup, and a bottle of strawberry syrup. Kim was good for mixing sex and sweets. "Well, now, so many things to get us all sticky. Which were you planning to use first?" she asked with a teasing smile.

"I don't know," Kim answered again. She could not remember what she was going to do with anything. The poses were just seared into her eyes and taking up all the space in her brain right now.

"And what about this?" Shego asked as she took the bowl from Kim. The bowl held strawberries and cherries. It seemed that her mate had a long night planned.

"I don't know…"

"Then you won't mind if I borrow them," the raven-haired female said.

Kim shook her head, showing that she would not mind. Shego put the bag down on the nightstand and put the bowl next to it. She then grabbed Kim and lowered her to the bed. She started a heated kiss that Kim immediately responded to; apparently, she was not shell-shocked anymore.

Shego grabbed a cherry while making sure to keep the kiss going. She used the cherry to trace Kim's torso before bringing it to her mouth as they pulled away for air. As soon as she started eating the cherry, Kim attacked again, kissing her roughly. When that kiss ended, Kim had to spit out a cherry pit.

They ended up using all of the cherries and strawberries in such a manner, some of them going lower than others. The other items were put to use too, especially the chocolate syrup. It was definitely a sticky night.

----(Next day)

"We're home!" Todd called as he unlocked the front door to the house. He stepped in with Jayden and Ron behind him.

"Mom! Mommy! We're back!" Jayden hollered, wanting their mothers to come greet them.

Little did they know, but Kim and Shego had been sleeping until they came in yelling. They both muttered cursed under their breath as they tore out of bed and looked for something to put on. They both found their robes quickly and then exited their bedroom in time to see their kids coming up the stairs.

"Mom! Mommy!" Jayden grinned as she charged them both. She leaped into Kim's arms since Kim was standing just a little bit in front of Shego.

"Hey," Kim greeted their daughter and hugged her. "Did you have a good time with Uncle Ron and Bo?"

"It was the best! We played ninjas and Rufus was the evil overlord," Jayden replied.

"Rufus was still in hiding when we left," Ron commented.

"I'll bet," Shego deadpanned.

"Hey, Mom, what the hell happened to your neck? Looks like something bit the shit outta you," Jayden commented as she caught sight of a dark maroon spot on Kim's neck.

The hero went wide-eyed for a moment because of the panic that coursed through her like rogue wave. What was she supposed to say? It was not like she could say what bit her.

"Oh, Jade, you know Mom, always around a bunch of things that want to bite her," Shego remarked with a wicked smirk. She had to admit that she could not help biting Kim when she was covered in honey.

"I guess it was mission accomplished with you two," Ron quipped, trying his best not to laugh and succeeding halfway.

"Yeah, thanks for the help. We'll return the favor some day," Kim replied.

Ron waved it off; of course they were going to return the favor someday. That was a given. With the way everyone watched the kids, they were all doing each other a continuous favor anyway. He was just glad he could be of service for the moment, especially since he got to kick Todd's butt last night in Tekken.

--------------

Next time: Jayden and Raziya are put into the same class with Mayah Bokuden. Hmm…that probably isn't going to end well for the school.


	31. Reason Thirtyone: Chaos unite

I don't own these characters. I don't own the original premise that this saga is based on. I don't own Knex either.

Reason Thirty-one: Chaos unite

_Whatever are we to do with these guys? _

Shego and Kim were meeting with principal of Jayden's school. For once, they had gotten a call and it was not because she was in trouble. It was a little too early in the school year for trouble in their opinions, but they knew that would not stop Jayden and her merry band of miscreants. Instead of the usual trouble, they had gotten called up there for something positive. It was also something that they knew. The principal had called them up there because thanks to a test that they gave to every student in the school from first grade up to assess the students. The principal thought that she had some astounding news for the couple. The test informed them that Jayden was a genius. The principal was surprised by their lack of reaction when she told them.

They lived with Jayden every day from when she was born; of course they were not surprised to find out the kid was a genius. There was the fact that Jayden loved it when Kim explained her work to the child that clued them in, among plenty of other things. Sure, there were parts of the work that Jayden did not understand, but she got the gist of it. She also got a kick out of reading her Mom's books, the harder the better in her opinion. They would be more surprised to find out that Jayden was not good at standardized tests and it said that she was normal or something like that.

The meeting was about what they should do with Jayden. The school thought it would be ridiculous to leave her in a regular first grade class. It was a good thing that Kim and Shego brought Jayden because they would like her input, especially when the suggestion of skipping her ahead came up.

"Oh, can I go to class with Bo and Mayah?" Jayden asked curiously and with great hope in her voice. She bet that school would be a lot better if she could be with Bokuden and Mayah, well if Raziya was going to be with them too anyway.

"But, they're just a class ahead of you," Shego pointed out. The aforementioned pair of maniacs was in the second grade. They were in a gifted class since their parents was very much against raising any fools and made sure their kids did plenty of reading and other educational activities, but the point of the matter was that they were still only a class ahead of Jayden.

"But, I wanna be with them," Jayden answered, whining slightly and sounding very much like her redheaded mother.

"Kimmie." Shego turned to her spouse, hoping that her wife would be able to talk some sense into their daughter.

"You know, skipping a bunch of grades isn't as great as you might think it is. It might be best that she just skip a grade or something if that's what she wants. I mean, I didn't like skipping a bunch of grades really. I didn't have any peers. I didn't spend as much time with my friends as I would have liked. I got teased a lot, which wasn't much fun. So, maybe we should just let her skip the one grade for now. It's what she wants to do," Kim replied.

"Are you sure? Won't she get bored or something?" Shego inquired. The last thing that they needed was Jayden sitting in class with nothing to do and Mayah and Bokuden were around.

"This is Jade we're talking about. She'd get bored if there was a lion eating her arm," Kim pointed out while motioning to their daughter with a sweep of her hand. The child was sitting between them.

"No, I wouldn't," Jayden objected while kicking her feet back and forth in her chair. She then took a moment to imagine a lion eating her arm. She figured that she would totally kick a lion's ass for doing such a thing.

"It's always possible to supplement her education. You have to remember that school isn't just about education. It's about socializing and that's something Jade really needs. Or do you want her to turn into me?" Kim teased with a grin.

Shego laughed a bit. "Okay, we'll look at alternatives for her education. Felix and Mo are probably going through this too, so we can collaborate on things with them," she suggested.

"Good idea. Felix'll probably know a bit on the subject since his mother home-schooled him for a while and he had tutors," Kim stated.

Shego nodded and they eventually left. They were right about Felix and Monique going through the same thing considering the fact that Raziya took the same test as Jayden. They had both achieved perfect scores on the test, which was amazing considering Jayden fell asleep during the thing and Raziya got distracted by a cloud out of the window that she swore looked like a detailed image of a woman in a fancy dress.

Monique and Felix had not thought to ask Raziya what she wanted to do like Shego and Kim had done with Jayden. But, when they found out what the martial artists had done, they decided to go with that idea. So, it would seem that Raziya and Jayden were going to the second grade to be with Mayah and Bokuden. But, their parents were still going to have to find ways to supplement their education to continue to nurture their girls' deep minds.

"Well, I think if we give them packets to do in school while the other kids are doing their school work, that should work out," Felix suggested. He and the mothers were sitting around the table in Shego and Kim's kitchen.

The girls were in the living room, coloring like normal little girls. Well, almost like normal little girls. Raziya was in an artistic stage where she liked to blend colors now, so she did that almost all of the time, whether she was drawing her own pictures or coloring in a coloring book. Being around Raziya doing such things got her friends to try coloring in different ways and Jayden was trying that at the moment. Jayden went for more pressure on pictures than she used to, liking the richer look of a deeper color. She still did not have much talent for drawing, but she could color with the best of them and she prided herself on that.

"So, it's more like we home school them, but they do the homework at school?" Kim asked Felix.

"Yeah, something like that. It should work and we all have time to do it," he pointed out.

"He's right. We all do have time to do it," Shego concurred.

"Yeah, so that was easy," Felix commented with a laugh.

"We should probably do more for them than just that," Monique said. Their little girls were geniuses for crying out loud. They needed to do something really outstanding for them.

"This is true. I mean, Jayden and Raziya are really smart. Maybe we should sign them up for some college courses," Kim suggested.

"They'd never sit still for them," Shego pointed out. Jayden and Raziya drifted in and out of the real world at their own leisure, probably due to boredom and an abundance of energy. They needed to be active. There was no way that they would sit still in a college classroom for an hour or more. There was also the fact that they would not be able to see over the desks in a lecture hall.

"Let's take this slow, guys. Not every genius kid needs a college degree by the time they're ten. I mean, Kim, you didn't get one until you were seventeen," Felix stated.

"Hey, I had two," Kim commented, holding up two fingers to emphasize what she had.

"How many do you have now?" he inquired, teasing her a bit. He had been labeled a "genius" by people and he had not had a college degree until he was twenty, so he did not think that a degree was necessary for their girls just because the pair were brilliant.

Kim made a face and scratched her forehead. "That is a good question," she replied. She would need a moment to calculate that one. "Are we counting PhDs?" she asked, quite serious.

"Okay, let's get back on topic with the girls. We probably should take this slow," Shego said.

"Are you sure?" Monique asked.

"Look, we've got them this far by doing what we've been doing, so let's not push them. They're only six. I mean, yeah, they're geniuses, but they're still very much six-year-old nuts," Shego pointed out. Their daughters were little six-year-olds despite their knowledge and reading level; they liked to color, pet dogs, watch cartoons, and ask their parents to check the closet or under the bed for monsters.

"Yeah, we've been doing pretty good with them," Felix agreed with a nod.

"So, let's just keep it up and go with the home schooling idea," Kim said.

"Sounds good. Now, we just have to worry about them being in the same class as Bo and Mayah," Monique commented with a laugh.

They all looked at each other. They suddenly felt a great deal of pity for the second grade teacher. Well, it was probably going to be the most exciting school year ever for that class. They were all pretty sure that they were probably going to have to inform the school that they could all come up for each other's children if something happened. There was just going to be no way for them all to be able to come up there when it was necessary now that the brat pack was together.

----(New day)

"Bets, where you going?" Shego asked as the boss walked by her desk. She was now set up in a little area next to Betty's office because they were still working on all of the details with the expending of the department. She could not wait for it all to be over, even though it meant that she would no longer be a full-time field agent anymore. Still, the process was just irksome and tiring.

"Goddamn Mayah," Betty replied, as if that made any sense while continuing on her way. Her response did make sense to Shego since it was becoming sort of a catch phrase for Betty. It meant that Mayah did something wacky in school and the one-eyed woman had to go up there.

"Wait for me," Shego said with a sigh.

"What?" Betty was confused because it did not look like her employee was going anywhere when she walked by and now all of a sudden the pale woman was implying that she was coming.

"Come on," the pale woman said and then her phone rang. She looked at the phone and Betty nodded, understanding. Shego answered the phone and informed Jayden's school that she was on her way; the school was calling her in regards to Jayden, which was what she had anticipated ever since Betty muttered her catch phrase about her daughter.

"Take your car?" Betty proposed.

"Might as well. I knew this was going to be Hell in school," Shego replied with a laugh.

Betty could only nod in agreement. The four kids had only been in class together a week and they had been called up there three times already. They were starting to learn that Jayden and Raziya might possibly need more than their home-schooling work and they probably needed their seats moved from right next to Mayah, who liked to egg Jayden on when she started doing crazy things, like forcing a kid to eat paper because he was making fun of Bo's art project.

"Do you think it was a mistake to teach them martial arts so early on in life?" Betty wondered a loud as they climbed into the car. Mayah had actually been getting into tussles before Jayden and Raziya came around, but they were obviously not going to get any better around each other.

"I think it was a mistake to introduce them in the first place," Shego answered with a laugh.

"Yeah, that might have been a mistake. Damn our third generation Director-Gooding connection," the one-eyed woman said.

"It could be worse."

"How so?"

"Aztek could be with them and Mayah could be feeding him glue again while Jade holds him down and Razi cheers them all and Bo acts as the lookout to make sure no one's coming," Shego explained.

Betty could not argue that since that was true. The last thing that they all needed was Aztek in the mix and Mayah would lose whatever mind that she had left now that Jayden and Raziya were with her. And, Jayden was going to lose whatever she had, although they were all certain that she did not have a mind to lose anymore. Raziya would just root them on and Bokuden would watch with interest before getting involved himself. And to think, they had agreed to put them altogether. It was a disaster, but at least the kids were happy about it.

----(New day)

"Hey, Jade, what do you got for lunch?" Bokuden asked curiously. The four friends were sitting at a table in the cafeteria. He had plans to trade her because he had an onigiri (1) with salmon for lunch and he really would like what he knew Jayden had, namely a tuna fish sandwich.

"Tuna!" Jayden declared with a grin as she put her Care Bear lunch box up on the table. Like her big brother, her favorite type of sandwich was tuna, with mayonnaise and tomatoes usually, but she would eat tuna prepared in many different ways.

"You always have tuna," Raziya commented.

"Tuna is fucking great," Jayden said and then she opened her lunch box. A small frog leaped out the container, surprising her and her three friends.

"Why do you have a frog?" Raziya inquired, even though she should have expected as much with Jayden.

"Catch him!" Jayden called to her friends. She actually had not known that she had that frog in her lunch box. She considered that she might have placed him there by accident.

The friends all went after the frog, as they knew that all of the animals that came from the Possible-Gooding home were wanted and loved. They made a scene, of course. The frog was rather small and agile, so it could get into tight, little spots, but they went after it anyway.

"Move it, asshole!" Mayah ordered while pushing a larger kid out of the way; he was probably a third grader since grades one through three all had lunch at the same time. She flung him to side with great ease, though.

"Get him!" Jayden dived under the table since Mayah cleared the way.

"He's coming out the other side," Raziya called to Bokuden. There was no way that she was going to jump over the table for the thing, but Bokuden was up for it. He had no problem with going over the table and almost landing on Jayden as they both went for the frog.

The teachers noticed the spectacle and sighed. One went to call the parents of the usual suspects while the others went to round up the usual suspects. Through all of the confusion, they found out that there was a frog on the loose; that information was gathered from several girls screaming about it. Once more students knew that there was a frog on the loose, chaos erupted.

"Don't step on Octavian!" Jayden shouted, pushing several students out of the way to make sure that they did not harm her frog.

By the time Jayden and her friends corralled the tiny frog, the whole lunch room was a madhouse. They stood back and wondered what was going on, which was when a teacher got them. They all looked at the teacher and then at the frenzy in the cafeteria.

"Saying we didn't do it wouldn't help any, would it?" Mayah asked the teacher curiously. Her answer was a head shake and an escort to the principal's office with her friends. They wondered which parents were going to make the trip to hear what they had done now. They hoped that the fact that it was an accident helped. They only wanted to catch the frog after all. That would not be the last time an animal popped out of something of Jayden's either.

----(New day)

"Hey, you guys wanna see the new boa we got?" Jayden asked her friends. They were in class. Their desks were all pushed together because the class was set up to where four desks were put together into a square. It was supposed to promote peer help and group work, which worked with their little crew, even though Jayden and Raziya did not do the same work as Bokuden and Mayah. But, it also made it easier for them to plot, scheme, and cause further insanity.

"New boa?" Bokuden echoed in an intrigued voice. He was all for seeing a new snake.

"You got a new snake?" Mayah asked.

"Yeah. It's huge. Mom just got it yesterday. I brought it to show you guys since you're not gonna be at my house until Wednesday," Jayden explained. It was Monday at the moment and Wednesday was too far off in her opinion. They needed to see the snake now.

"I dunno if I wanna see a huge snake," Raziya replied with an apprehensive look. She knew that a big snake could hurt them while Jayden did not seem to think that any cold-blooded creature was dangerous at all. Mayah was the same when it came to dogs and Bokuden was like that when it came to rodents. Raziya was a bit more cautious around animals, especially if her friends were handling them.

"Show us," Bokuden urged Jayden. He loved it when she had new snakes, new animals altogether actually. He wished that he could have a new animal almost every week. Instead, they always just had Rufus at his house and while Rufus was admittedly awesome, he was no snake.

Jayden nodded and she grabbed her book bag, which was hanging on the back of her chair. She opened it and pulled out a large clear plastic container that had holes in it for air. She popped the top off of it and began pulling out a ten-foot-long boa. Mayah and Bokuden looked amazed while Raziya's expression a mix of horror and awe. It was like the blue-eyed girl knew that things were going to go awry, but she was still pleasantly stunned by the size of the serpent.

"Mom named him Attila. She found him yesterday in Costa Rica," Jayden explained.

"He's a monster," Mayah commented, although they had seen much bigger snakes and other critters in the "pet room" at Jayden's house. The "pet room" was just the place that Kim stored her animals until she was forced to let them go.

"Lemme hold him," Bokuden requested.

"Okay," Jayden said and she carefully passed the snake along to her friend.

Bokuden was careful with the snake; he knew how to handle the creatures for the most part. No child that liked animals could hang out at Jayden's house and not learn how to handle the critters in the house. Just like no one could go to Mayah's house and not learn how to properly take care of a dog.

Bokuden was all right with everything until a girl came out of nowhere as far as they were concerned. She was going to ask him to borrow some construction paper, but when he turned around, she saw that he was holding a serpent and that frightened her beyond measure. She screamed at the very sight of the snake, which actually startled the serpent and it started trying to coil around Bokuden's arm.

"Oh, no!" the blonde boy hollered, knowing that the snake trying to constrict his arm was not a good thing.

"Damn it!" Jayden huffed as she leaned over her desk and went for Attila since she knew what the snake was doing.

"You fucking idiot!" Mayah hollered at the girl since she was the freaked the snake out. Her outburst just frightened the girl more.

"What's going on back there?" the teacher called.

"Nothing!" all four friends replied.

Raziya and Mayah went to block the teacher's view while Jayden and Bokuden tried getting the serpent off of him. The teacher had to walk over to the desk to see what was going on and she was not even surprised by what she saw. The teacher had come to the point where nothing that they did shocked her.

"Jade, what did your mothers say about bringing animals to school?" the teacher huffed while bending down to try to help get the snake off of Bokuden. She knew that they were lucky that the snake was not particularly thick.

"They said no more frogs. This is a snake," Jayden pointed out. No one ever said anything about not bringing snakes to school.

"I know what it is," the teacher snorted in anger. She did not think that there was a clause in her work contract that said anything about having to do animal rescues.

"Damn it, Attila, let 'im go," Jayden growled as she tried to pry the serpent off of her friend.

Eventually, they did get the snake off of Bokuden and back into the container. The teacher called Kim immediately, knowing that she was the "animal parent." Kim took custody of Attila the snake and scolded Jayden about taking him from the room in the house. Jayden got the chance to explain herself and Kim could understand her enthusiasm for snakes and wanting to show her friends, but she told Jayden that she could not keep bringing animals to school, especially when they were bigger than she was.

"Besides, you don't have snake handling credentials," Kim teased her daughter.

"I can damn well get some," Jayden replied with a wide grin.

"When you get older. Right now, you can't keep bringing animals into school. It's not very healthy for you to keep snakes and things in your book bag anyway. Attila could've easily overheated," the redhead pointed out, making sure to keep her tone gentle so that she did not come across as discouraging the child.

"Sorry, Mom. I wasn't thinking about that. I just wanted them to see," Jayden explained while rubbing her head a little bit. She did not want to hurt any of the animals, especially her mother's creatures, but she wanted so badly for her friends to see the marvelous serpent.

"I know, sweetie, but you have to be more patient about things. They can see the animals at home," Kim reminded the girl.

"I know, but damn it, Wednesday is so far away!" Jayden whined.

"I know, but you have to wait next time," Kim said.

Jayden nodded to show that she understood, but that was not the end of things thanks to the snake incident. It turned out that the girl that Bokuden had accidentally scared with the snake had an older brother and she told him about the incident. It would seem that he had to be the hero after hearing the story.

The brother approached Bokuden on the school playground after his sister pointed the blonde boy out to him. Bokuden was busying himself by pushing Raziya on the swings; he was always the one that pushed the girls because he did not particularly like swings himself. Their other two cohorts were not around them at the moment. The boy caught Bokuden by surprise, charging him and knocking him to the ground. He stood over Bokuden like a menacing scarecrow.

"You think you can just scare my sister and get away with it," the boy growled down at Bokuden.

"Excuse me?" the half-Jewish boy asked in a confused tone. He was not hurt from the push or anything and only ended up on the safety rubber-covered ground because he was caught unaware.

Raziya noticed what was happening and guessed that Bokuden was about to get into a fight, which she did not think was good. After all, Bokuden was the last one among them to fight, verbally or physically. She hopped off of her swing and whistled rather loudly, which the boy harassing Bokuden did not think too much of.

"I'll beat you bloody for scaring my sister," the boy declared while leaning down and punching Bokuden several times in the arm. The half-Japanese boy was more puzzled than anything because he did not see the reason that he was being attacked.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Jayden commented, coming up behind the boy. "But then again, I'm not a fucking moron."

"What?" the boy asked, turning his attention to the newcomer.

"He's a damn ninja, you know. He could seriously fuck you up if he wanted to," Jayden explained. She did not see why Bokuden did not just beat the kid up and move on with his life, honestly. But, she supposed that it all right that he was the pacifist amongst them because they were there for him.

"He don't look like no ninja to me," the boy said while glancing down at Bokuden, who was starting to pick himself up from what he guessed was supposed to be the start of a sound beating. His little brother hit harder than that, though.

"Yeah, he's got a secret jutsu and every fucking thing," Jayden said with a devilish smile on her face. If the boy was smart, he probably would have run from her expression alone.

"Oh, yeah, like what?" the boy demanded to know.

"Like that." Jayden pointed to her right.

The boy turned to look and the last thing he saw was the side end of a thick rubber swing hitting him in the face. Jayden could not help laughing, nor could the two girls that swung the schoolyard weapon, Mayah and Raziya. Bokuden looked at the girls and smiled slightly at them. He did not agree with the method entirely, especially since the wailing that he received was so wimpy, but he had to appreciate the help.

"Wow, he can't take a fucking hit at all," Jayden remarked while examining their handiwork.

"Really," Mayah agreed with a laugh as she came over to see what they had done. It was a pretty clean hit, she thought. They might have broken his nose, she considered from the looks of it; all of the blood was a good indication of that.

"Score one for the good guys," Raziya cheered. It was only later that she found out that they were not the "good guys." Their parents were contacted and they got in trouble for beating up a fellow student. They did not really understand why they were getting in trouble since the boy had been trying to beat up Bokuden, who even had the bruises on his arm to prove it. He could not believe that he had bruises when it felt like he had been getting hit with a feather.

"Guys, guys, guys," Kim said to the group. They were in the living room of her house. She had been the one to pick them up from school that day and listen to how they clocked a boy with a swing in person. Everyone else had "situations" that needed their attention and that was why she was left to handle it alone for the moment.

"Mom, he was fucking kicking Bo's ass," Jayden argued, knowing that they were about to get reprimanded about the so-called fight that they had. A one-hit knock out was hardly a fight in their opinions.

"He was not!" Bokuden objected. "It didn't even hurt! I got up right after he stopped and I woulda taken him if I needed to!" He might be the last to fight among them, but he still had his pride for crying out loud.

"That swing took care of him pretty good," Mayah remarked and Raziya gave her a high-five in agreement.

"Guys, that was not cool. I think it's great that you all try to stand up for each other and everything, but you have to understand there's a limit to what you can do," Kim tried to explain.

"We only hit him once," Raziya pointed out since the redhead used the word "limit." They had _limited_ themselves to that one hit.

Kim sighed and tried to explain to them why that one hit was going over the limit. They did not seem to get it and even when the other parents showed up and joined in on the explanation, they still did not seem to quite get it. Were they supposed to let Bokuden get beaten up, which he insisted was not going to happen? The parents told them, of course not; they were supposed to stand up for each other. So, the kids needed to know what the problem was in hitting the boy with the swing if they were supposed to look out for each other. It was very confusing to the kids, which the parents were starting to comprehend, so they ended up just telling the kids to try not to use weapons when they were defending each other and to try to talk things out before resorting to hitting anyone.

Mayah and Jayden rolled their eyes to the instructions. Bokuden understood it for the most part since he did try to talk things out. Raziya supposed that it made some sense, but it certainly was fun when they hit that kid with that swing after he was picking on Bokuden for no reason. No reason that they could tell anyway.

----(New day)

The kids were full of surprises and trouble. They tried their best not to get into fights. But, they also tried their best to keep things interesting, having Raziya around helped greatly, especially when Bokuden came up with the idea to build a catapult one day in the schoolyard. Building things were certainly Raziya's specialty and Bokuden seemed to have a knack for suggesting cool things to build.

They set the launch pad on the little merry-go-round thing in the center of the playground. Mayah brought the ammunition, which were balloons full of lotion. They figured it would be good ammo for them to see how on-target the catapult was, although Raziya insisted that everything that she made was on point.

"That's only with Knex," Mayah argued about Raziya being on point. Toys and real life were two different things as far as Mayah was concerned and right now they were testing something that was real life.

"Hey, knex happen to be a very accurate building tool," the blue-eyed girl countered.

"Like hell they do," Mayah replied.

"Will you two shut the fuck up and get everything together," Jayden said to both of them.

"You shut the fuck up," Mayah said in a tone that showed that she disliked being told to "shut the fuck up," even though Jayden spoke in a friendly manner for the most part.

"Fucking make me," Jayden snorted. She wished that Mayah would try to make her shut up.

"Guys, the catapult," Bokuden reminded them, knowing that his friends were walking that thin line toward a fight.

The girls immediately turned their attention back to getting the rather well-put together catapult up. They set the thing up and Mayah loaded it while Raziya picked a target. Once Raziya found something that she thought was a good distance away to show how great her catapult was, she had Bokuden and Jayden twirl the merry-go-round in the right direction. They aimed, they fired, and before they knew it they were in the very familiar principal's office waiting for their parents. Damn it.

--------------

1: onigiri: a rice ball that's like the Japanese version of a sandwich.

Next time: jump to the fourth grade and the kids join the scouts. The kids versus the scouts, who will win?


	32. Reason Thirtytwo: Organized chaos

I don't own these characters, except for the second generation anyway. I don't own the Care Bears either.

Reason Thirty-two: Organized chaos

_The kids' social skills, or lack there of, seem to beg for something to be done._

By the time the crew was in the fourth grade, the people at their school were starting to recommend that their parents get them involved in some kind of hobby with the hope that it would calm the group down. The parents liked to point out that the kids had hobbies, plenty of them. All of the children were involved in martial arts. They all had their readings that they liked to do. Raziya liked to build things and drawing, Jayden liked being involved with her mother's animals, Mayah was interested in dogs along with terrorizing her younger brothers, and Bokuden had to make sure the girls did not kill each other while also being interested making models. They were not hurting for things to keep them occupied.

Still, the parents conceded that maybe some kind of organized activity might help the kids out and keep them from getting into trouble in school and hopefully assist in making them more social. After all, Todd had his sports and he was slightly less insane than when he was their age. Maybe it was being involved in something organized and around other children that helped him out, they considered.

"What can we get them all involved in, though?" Ron wondered aloud. They were all at Kim and Shego's house again. The kids were running around in the backyard; well, Todd was running down the street to get away from Mayah, but they were sure that he would be back soon. He was supposed to be watching the younger lot after all, and he would never forsake his duties for long.

"Well, there's sports," Yori pointed out. It was the first thing that came to mind because it was one of the only things that the kids did not do.

"Like what? In most sports you're just arming them or giving them an excuse to hit someone," Shego countered with an amused scoff. She could see them now, clobbering other kids or even each other as soon as a whistle was blown to start a game.

"In some cases, both," Kim chimed in.

"Well, they'd like that at least," Betty remarked with a bit of a smile. She was holding her daughter, Chyna. She had Chyna a year after having Romah. Everyone joked that she was just about the most fertile menopausal woman on the planet; she did not think that was very funny of course, especially since she was far from menopausal. She was holding Chyna just for a little while and then she was going to release the baby into the wild with the others. Chyna would simply stick close to her big sister and Mayah would keep a good eye on her. But, Betty was going to wait for Todd to come back before she let her youngest roam the backyard again.

"Oh yeah, legal beatings all around. They wouldn't get enough of it," Felix commented. He could just imagine them playing pee-wee hockey or something. There might actually be charges brought against them.

"Well, it would teach them teamwork," Monique said.

"I think they get enough teamwork on their own," Shego replied. Teamwork certainly was not the kids' problem. They all had each others' backs when necessary, and a lot of times when it was not. What they lacked was an understanding of going overboard and what was socially acceptable.

"Maybe something that teaches them something," Kim suggested. She was more thinking out loud than anything else, which was why her words came out a little vague.

"Like what? Gun making?" Betty remarked with a slight laugh. Yeah, all the kids needed were to learn how to do more things, she thought sarcastically.

"I think Razi already knows how to do that," Ron joked…well, not really joked. Felix and Monique glanced away; yeah, they were pretty sure that their daughter knew how to make a gun.

"And Jade's got the biological weapons down for them. Not to mention, Smiley would help them if she didn't," Shego added in. Those kids were definitely too smart for their own good, not to mention too smart for everyone else's good too.

"What if we got them pets?" Kim suggested out of the blue. It was a creepy suggestion coming from her considering her past.

"Don't just say it like that and stop. Keep going because you know where the hell our minds are," Monique said to the hero while making a circular motion with her hand as a gesture for her friend to continue on.

"Really," Betty concurred. "And if you don't start talking, I'm going to have to remark that I don't think we all are going to able to go out and find lost, genius eighteen-year-old brats beaten up in boxes for all of them," she joked.

"No, I mean, real pets. Like with the dogs and the naked moles rats and stuff. It would give them a sense of responsibility. They would come to understand that they can't just act any old way if they had something that depended on them," Kim explained.

"And you don't think they might just end up killing the pet?" Monique asked. She thought that it was a big risk for them to just dump pets on their weird offspring. It could end very badly.

"I think they'd try their best not to," the redhead answered. After all, she had seen Jayden with their animals and Jayden was very careful with all of them and quite the caretaker. She believed that the other kids would be the same because she had seen Mayah with the dogs at her house and Bokuden was great with Rufus when the whole young group was not making the naked molerat be the ninja overlord in games.

"I don't want to deal with that if they do end up accidentally killing something," Shego said. She did not want to see Jayden heartbroken over the loss of a pet, especially if it was the child's fault.

"Me neither," Ron concurred. Yori, Betty, and Dahntay nodded in agreement. They all felt the same as the super-powered woman.

"Well, what if they asked for pets? None of them would get one because we don't want to deal with them if the pets die?" Kim asked curiously, almost in perplexed by the decisions.

"Not so much if the pets die, but if the kids kill them," Betty explained. They were not confident in the kids being able to take care of pets to the point where they might not accidentally kill the creatures. The kids would be crushed on unthinkable levels considering how much they all loved animals and none of them wanted to deal with that.

"Well, we could help," Kim pointed out.

"Yeah, but then it defeats the purpose," Monique countered and the redheaded hero conceded.

"Yeah, we shouldn't get them pets unless they ask, not as a way to trick them to being saner," Felix agreed.

The others nodded. They were going to continue on, but Aztek charged into the living room, which was where they were all located. He typically made his presence known when he entered a room due to the way that he entered, as it was always noisy and annoying due to his high pitched voice. He was covered in mud, which did not surprise the adults. It was impossible for Aztek to go outside and not get covered in something within a minute. He might have actually been a dirt magnet.

"Mommy, Daddy, I ate ten worms!" Aztek declared proudly. Apparently, that was an accomplishment to him. His expression suddenly changed as he remembered that he was supposed to be reporting an accident. "Razi threw up too," he said as if that was unimportant.

Monique sighed and went to go get her daughter, who had thrown up when Aztek started eating worms. Before vomiting, Raziya had been enjoying herself calling Aztek a dirty, ugly boy since he was just covered in mud for no reason at all. Aztek went back outside after making his report while Monique came inside with her child, who was looking as green as Shego at the moment.

"So, you gonna eat more worms?" Mayah asked her brother curiously as he trotted back over to their group.

"Nah, that's boring now," Aztek answered while looking around for something new to occupy his time.

"When was it entertaining?" Bokuden wondered out loud. He failed to see what was so great about eating ten earthworms. He did note that his little brother had been utterly fascinated with Aztek devouring the worms, but Nobunaga did not try to eat any, which Bokuden was thankful for. He doubted that his mother would be thrilled with him if Nobunaga started eating worms while he was around.

"You sure? We found a bunch more," Jayden informed Aztek, presenting a handful of earthworms to him. Romah as with her, holding just as many worms as Jayden was. She did not even know how many there were, but she bet that he would eat them.

"I'm done." Aztek dismissed the worms with a wave of his hand. Worms were boring now in his opinion.

"Damn it," Jayden grumbled and she let the worms go. Every time Aztek started doing something cool, he just stopped suddenly. She hated that. Aztek had the habit of doing something and then just walking off to do something else with almost everything in his life. He always looked at it as moving on to something better once things got boring for him; things always rapidly got boring for him.

Romah decided to keep his worms. He tasted one and gagged; how the hell was his big brother eating those damned things? He let the worms go since they did not taste anywhere near good.

Aztek went to go climb on the lone apple tree that was in the middle of the yard; Kim and Todd had planted the tree back when they first brought the house. The others decided to "pretend" fight when Raziya came back; it was not really pretending, but they were not hitting nearly as hard as they would have if they were actually battling. It was a good way for them to all practice their martial arts and Todd returned to find them doing that. He did not stop them, especially since the activity was keeping Mayah away from him.

--------------

"I've got it!" Betty said out of the blue, which got her the attention of all of the parents in the room.

"Then tell us or shut the hell up," Shego replied.

"They like the outside and shit. Let's sign them up for scouts," the one-eyed woman declared.

Everyone was silent for a moment. Their kids in scouts? It would get them outside, which they would love. They would learn a bunch of seemingly useless things, which was always up their alley; they just liked learning stuff. They would possibly learn how to be responsible and how to get others to depend on them. And they would hopefully gain better social skills.

"Okay, do we have time to do this for them, though?" Shego wondered out loud.

They were all fairly busy people. Ron still had his restaurant, which was very popular. It was popular to the point where he was trying to talk them all into investing, so he could open another restaurant. He did not know it yet, but they were all going to give him the money that he needed because they had all eaten at his restaurant and they knew what kind of place he ran. They were willing to bet that a second one would do just as good as the first.

Yori was still teaching part-time at a high school, but she was also on staff at a college's physics department because of her work in theoretical physics. Felix was still working on his dream and getting rather far into it. He had finally figured out a way to connect the cybernetic parts that he wanted to develop to the nerve endings of the missing limbs that they would take the place of, so the new mechanical limbs would be able to be controlled by the brain like the actual limb.

Monique and Kim had involved themselves in the same project. Kim had decided to go ahead and let a studio make a show based on her life; her life as a teen mostly. They were going to take some artistic license with it, which she could understand, especially since she had not told them everything about her life for them to know what to do. They were going to consult with Kim as they made the show and for as long as it ran, but it was not going to be an exact replica of her life.

Monique was involved because Kim had suggested her for costume design. After seeing her portfolio, she was hired on the spot. They decided to also use her for consulting since she was such a good friend of Kim's and had known her since high school, which were the years that they wanted to focus on. They were going to try to get Ron and Felix too, but the fellows were resisting a bit since they had plenty to do already.

Betty had her crime fighting organization to handle, the Go City Justice Bureau. It was always growing and she did have a lot of work to do with it as head of the department. She had hundreds of employees to look after and crime to stop. Shego, well, she had to help, but she silently admitted that she did not hate her new job like she assumed she would. She trained agents in hand-to-hand combat, trying to help them think as criminals would, and also judging what agents would work best where.

Dahntay still did his annual dog show, which was time consuming. Sure, the show itself only lasted a weekend, but there was more to it than that. There was organizing and planning that went into it. There was also the fact that he got called to other shows to act as a judge and he also competed with his dogs in other shows. He was just all over the place with his dogs and with Leonardo, who was also a favorite in shows and popular for breeding too. So, they were all busy people, but they were never too busy to not make time for their children.

"We'll just have to figure out how to divide things up like we usually do," Felix said as if it was nothing and to them, it was nothing. Their kids always came first.

"If Kim can still find time to save the world every now and then, I think it would be our honor to figure out how to get our kids to and from scout meetings," Yori commented with a smile.

"She makes a point," Dahntay conceded.

"Then they're off to scouts," Monique declared. God, they all hoped that they were not about to traumatize a bunch of scouts and scout leaders.

----(New day)

Jayden, Mayah, and Raziya looked around the room that their mothers had left them in. It was a plain, but large room, like a gym. There were fifteen little girls around the room that appeared about their ages that were sitting at a table against a wall. The girls were making beaded necklaces and dressed like losers in the friends' opinions. The other girls around the room where dressed in skirts with dull orange sashes across their chests and turquoise berets that matched their skirts.

"What the fuck new hell is this?" Jayden wondered aloud with a bewildered expression on her face.

"The actual Hell?" Mayah guessed, being quite serious about her answer.

"If they leave us here…" Raziya could not even finish the thought. Surely their mothers could never leave them in such a place. Her mother would never leave her some place where people were wearing such…tacky clothing.

"We'll get them back," the youngest of the three finished the threat.

"Shut the hell up," Mayah said with an annoyed look on her face. "You never get back at your mothers," she pointed out, sounding as irked as she looked.

"You don't get back at yours either," Jayden countered, now slightly vexed herself.

"But, I'm not always swearing revenge and dumb shit like that," the eldest stated.

"Fuck you. You don't swear revenge because you know your mother would kick your fucking ass," Jayden replied.

"Like you could take your mothers," Mayah retorted.

Jayden decided to just mock Mayah back making a hand movement like her hand was talking. The older girl slapped Jayden's hand, which the raven-haired child did not take kindly to. Jayden pushed Mayah, who pushed back. They were both about to take swings at each other with balled up fists, but their mothers returned and stepped in between them.

"Well, you guys, what do you think?" Monique asked the girls, trying to sound happy and positive with her question to encourage the girls to give positive answers.

"Of what?" Mayah grumbled, already letting it be known what she thought through her tone.

"Of this place and your new friends," Kim answered, also making sure to keep a positive tone, although it was hard to find her without one. The mothers wanted the girls to be comfortable in their new surroundings, which was why they were speaking in upbeat voices.

"What fucking new friends?" Jayden wondered out loud. They did not know any of those people and they damn sure did not want to. Kim sighed because of Jayden's language; she was hoping that it would not get the girl in trouble as it had a habit of doing when she was in school.

"Those guys," Shego pointed out, motioning to the other little girls that were making beaded necklaces.

"Fuck no," Mayah and Jayden muttered together while Raziya just gawked in disbelief. Their mothers could not be serious, they thought. Worse yet, if their mothers were calling those girls their friends, it was very likely that they were going to be left there for some undisclosed amount of time. What had they done to earn such a punishment?!

"You guys are going to be Pixie scouts," Betty informed them.

"How the hell can you guys do this to us?" Jayden begged to know, looking up her mothers with a pleading expression. Her friends had similar expressions on as they looked to their mothers for answers.

"You'll like it," Kim tried to assure her daughter with a smile. "I was a Pixie when I was your age."

"You also jump outta planes, which you won't let us do," Jayden argued. Right underneath it all, she was very aware that her argument did not make much sense, but she did not care. She and her friends wanted to get out of there and they needed someway for their mothers to see that.

"Well, I was older when I started jumping out of planes. When you get older, you can jump out of a plane if you want to. For now, you're going to be a Pixie, so go mingle," Kim urged her daughter.

The mothers gently pushed their daughters toward the other girls and before the children could turn around to protest, they were intercepted by the Pixie den-mother. Their parents disappeared and they were forced, in their opinions, to sit down at a table with some other girls. They were then urged to make beaded necklaces like everyone else.

"Fuck that," Jayden grumbled, folding her arms across her chest, covering the Care Bear character on her shirt.

"Come on, it's fun," the woman urged the girls. She had already been warned that their language was going to be "colorful." She figured that if she had enough time with them, she would be able to clean up their language.

"Fun is building high-speed go-carts," Raziya stated in a funk. She did make a few go-carts with her father and then she ended up crashing them with her friends. Surprisingly enough, out of all of them, Bokuden drove the worst while Jayden tended to have accidents on purpose.

"Or running with our dogs," Mayah added in. She often went jogging with her mother, who also ran with Leonardo; Dahntay's dogs did not seem to like running distances. Mayah, of course, could not run the same distance as her mother, but Betty carried her on her back parts of the way.

"Or snake handling," Jayden just had to say.

The den mother could not believe what she was hearing, even though she had been told about the girls' hobbies. She had thought that their parents were exaggerating about them, not just their hobbies, but their supposed super-intelligence and fierce anti-social behavior. She figured that they were probably just average girls that were shy and could not make friends well.

The den mother gave the trio beads and string to make necklaces like the other girls. She also got them to introduce themselves to the other girls. The other girls seemed polite enough and some of them introduced themselves to the new members. They went so far to try to help Mayah, Raziya, and Jayden in starting their necklaces. The trio were not interested in the assistance because they were not interested in making what they felt were stupid, useless things. The Pixies did not let up, though.

"We're not doing this dumb shit," Mayah said plainly, slightly annoyed because the group were pushing something that she and her friends felt were pointless.

"But, it's fun," one of the girls insisted.

"We'll show you fun," Mayah said and then she and her crew started scanning the room for something that would lead to some real fun. She noticed a radio in the corner and directed Raziya and Jayden's attention to it. The pair smiled.

The trio dashed over to the radio; the other girls wondered what they were doing. Mayah grabbed the radio and threw it forcefully on the ground, smashing it open. The Pixies could not believe their eyes and looked around for the den mother, thinking that she was about to scold the newcomers, but the den mother was not around. Raziya and Jayden quickly started gathering up the parts of the brilliantly destroyed radio.

By the time the den mother came back, after speaking with the new trio's parents a bit more, she discovered that all of the girls were no longer at their tables. She looked around the room to see a crowd gathered in the corner. Curious as to what was going on, she made her way over to the girls and saw what had their complete and undivided attention, a tiny humanoid robot.

"Now, now, now girls, we're supposed to working on arts and crafts now, not playing with toys," the den mother said.

"This is arts and crafts," Mayah argued.

"No, this is a toy. You have to put it away," the den mother informed the new trio.

"If, by arts and crafts, you mean making something artistic, creative and original, which let's face it, bead necklaces aren't, this is arts and crafts," Raziya chimed in. She was holding the remote control to the little robot and making it break-dance at the moment.

"Considering the fact that we just made this from spare parts lying around," Jayden added in with a monstrous and demonic grin.

"Spare parts lying around?" the den mother echoed in disbelief. She could not believe it because she had not been gone long enough for them to make a robot in her opinion. Hey, nine and eight year old girls should not even know how to make robots in her opinion.

"Yeah, this old ass radio," Mayah answered and she motioned to the place that the aforementioned radio had been in.

The den mother looked over to see that the radio was indeed gone. She looked down at the robot with the hope that she would not recognize any of the pieces as assurance that she was being lied to. She did not see any semblance of the radio in the robot, but the remote had a few recognizable pieces, like the volume dial. She had a bad feeling about her new girls now.

--------------

"Today was stupid," Raziya decided. The girls were living room of the Possible-Gooding home.

They were not really doing anything together. Jayden was occupied with her rubix cube; she actually liked the puzzle cube much more than the complicated ball puzzles that Kim typically did. Raziya was working in her sketch pad. Mayah was reading a book on dogs.

"Not as stupid as our day," Bokuden grumbled as he and the guys entered the room. "The guys" consisted of Aztek, who was covered in dirt as usual, Nobunaga, and Romah.

"How so?" Jayden asked and then she looked up at them. "Holy fuck, what are you guys wearing?" she inquired with a stunned look on her face.

"Don't laugh," Aztek ordered her. The boys were wearing "Dragon Scout" uniforms; it would seem that the local troop would take kids of any age as long as the boy could speak and was potty-trained, which was how Romah and Nobunaga ended up being accepted.

The Dragon Scouts were the boy version of the Pixie Scouts. They were associated with each other, both claiming that they would turn young boys and girls into responsible, acceptable members of society. Yeah, that claim was going to be put to the test hard considering the group of misfits that just joined up with them.

"What the hell?" Mayah said as she looked up at her brothers. Raziya was busy laughing because of the outfits the guys were in. They had on aqua-colored shorts that just met the tops of their knees, sea-green short-sleeved shirts, but best of all were crimson kerchiefs tied around their necks.

"We had to join the Dragon Scouts," Nobunaga muttered in anger while practically ripping his shirt off. He tore off several buttons while doing so. He felt like such a jerk in that outfit, so he could imagine how stupid his big brother had to feel. Romah was of similar thinking.

The girls really wished that they could break down laughing, but they could really feel the boys' pain. So, instead of making fun of the fellows, they just let the subject go. The boys were grateful for that and decided to flop around the living room like the girls.

Romah went over to Mayah and got her to read aloud to him. Aztek started bugging Raziya about giving him paper and a pencil, so he could draw too; she was not interested in giving into his demands. Nobunaga decided to busy himself by jumping on the sofa, even though he knew he was not supposed to; hey, it was fun and there were no adults around at the moment to say anything. Bokuden decided to help Jayden out with the puzzle cube, which he thought was very interesting, although he did prefer the ball puzzles that Jayden's mom usually had. He was not very good with the ball puzzles, but he liked watching Kim or Todd solve them.

--------------

"Well, that didn't go as bad I thought it would," Betty remarked. She, Kim, Shego, Monique, Yori, Ron, and Felix were inside the kitchen. Most of them were hunting through the cabinets, looking for goodies that they knew Shego kept the kitchen full of considering how greedy her family was.

"It almost went sour," Felix commented; he was one of the hunters. He was busy going through the fridge while he was talking.

"How so?" Shego asked curiously. She was not bothered by everyone rummaging through the kitchen because she was used to it by now. She was parked at the little kitchen table.

"They tried to give the boys those Swiss army knives," Ron answered; he was another hunter and currently occupied in finding items for a sandwich that he would share with his sons once he finished making it.

"They were going to give No a knife? Why not just drive the troop off a cliff?" Monique remarked. She had located some barbeque potato chips and was tearing into them as she spoke.

"Well, giving No the knife would save on gas," Shego quipped with a bit of a laugh.

"Well, there's always the chance that Bo would've stopped him before he killed everyone," Felix joked.

"It doesn't matter. Aztek would've gotten to whoever No missed," Shego commented with a bit of a laugh.

"Yeah, but there's always the fact that Aztek would've gotten bored a few stab wounds in and just walked off for some candy or something like that," Kim chimed in. She was at the table with her spouse and eating some cookies. She figured since everyone else was eating junk, she might as well join in.

"That kid is damn fickle," Monique concurred.

"Easily distracted too," Shego added.

"Leave my little boy alone," Betty scolded them. Sure, Aztek was dirty, fickle, and easily distracted, but he was a sweet child; Raziya would probably say otherwise.

"So, things didn't go sour with the girls?" Felix asked in a bit of a surprise tone. Like everyone else, he noted a while ago that the girls were a lot wilder than the boys collectively. It was probably because the boys had Bokuden to keep them in check as he was the oldest and they respected him while the girls had no one to keep them in check if Bokuden was not around; hell, Bokuden seemed to get sucked into their madness more often than not when he was with the girls.

"Well, we left them alone for the most part. When we came back though, there were a few minor controversies," Kim reported.

"Minor?" Ron echoed. 'Minor' with those girls could be a wide variety of things, but typically meant that they did not get sent to the principal's office for doing something.

"Well, it seemed that they destroyed a radio to make a robot, which wouldn't have been so bad because they said they needed something better to do than making bead necklaces, but they didn't stop there. They ended up getting into an argument about controlling the robot, which included Jade punting the damn thing while Mayah and Razi got into a grappling contest. Jade jumped in after kicking the robot's ass. Mayah picked Jade up and slammed her onto a table while Razi leaped on Mayah's back and got her in a choke hold until she was all red in the face," Shego reported.

"So, pretty much one of their classic rumbles," Felix said with a shrug.

"Yeah, they were good at the end, like always, but the lady in charge was a bit shocked by it all," Betty commented.

"Well, it could've been worse," Monique said with a shrug too. The girls had a long list of antics that outweighed one of their usual nonsense fights. Hell, the kids had a long list of antics point blank, together and individually, including the best behaved of them: Bokuden.

"That's true," Yori agreed.

"I think we should just look at it as lucky that they all made it through the first day," Ron said. Everyone nodded in agreement. That had to be a good sign that the kids had not all been booted from the scouts the first day. Maybe they would actually all make good scouts.

--------------

Next time: the kids go camping with their scout troops.


	33. Reason Thirtythree: Into the woods

I don't own these characters. I don't own the original premise that this saga is based on. I don't own the Care Bears. I do own Todd, Jayden, Mayah, Bokuden, Raziya, Aztek, Romah, and Chyna.

Reason Thirty-three: Into the woods

_A new frontier…hopefully there won't be any screaming, but if so, maybe they'll luck out and someone will hear._

Having the kids in the Scouts had its ups and downs, mostly downs for all parties involved, but the kids had not been kicked out yet, which was good. Betty was starting to wish that they would get kicked out just so she could stop wondering what was on Aztek's uniform and why it smelled the way it did every time he came home from a meeting. She was glad that Romah was not as dirty as his big brother, but then again, it was near impossible to be "as dirty" as Aztek was.

Romah was more inclined to hang out with Nobunaga and they spent their time climbing and jumping off of things, which was just as annoying as the mystery smells in Aztek's clothes. Romah and Nobunaga came close to hurting themselves or others plenty of times with the way they leaped way before looking. They had landed on several people on a number of occasions, but that never stopped them from doing it again and again.

Out of the boys, everyone thought that Bokuden would take best to the Dragon Scouts, but that was not the case. He did not have anything against the boys in the troop or anything, but he just did not like "organized activities" outside of school. He felt like he should be able to do whatever he wanted on his own time and that just was not so in the Dragon Scouts. He also had no desire to learn a lot of the things being taught in the Scouts. Some of the things that they preached, he knew already and had little desire to hear again.

Bokuden liked helping people, so he did not think that he needed a Scout handbook to tell him that he should help a person in need; he thought that it was just common sense. Most of the things that were expected of a Scout he thought were common sense things and he felt like he was being treated like an idiot when he was told to read those things in a book. So, he spent most meetings looking sullen and disinterested while praying that time sped up for him to get out of there soon.

Other than that, Bokuden and the boys did make some friends in their troop, which their parents thought was good. They thought that socializing with other kids might help calm the boys down some. Most of that theory was directed toward Nobunaga, who was a hyperactive tornado, often leaving a trail of utter destruction in his wake. Being around other boys actually did not help Nobunaga or Aztek much because whenever they did outrageous things, the other boys just egged them on to do more.

Still, since the boys had not been thrown out for any shocking and insane behavior, their parents thought that was a good thing. They figured that as long as the boys stayed there, eventually it would prove to be a helpful thing for the boys' development. They just had to hope Nobunaga and Romah did not kill themselves or someone else before that happened. There was also the hope that Bokuden did not die of boredom, which seemed highly possible according to him.

The girls were another matter altogether. They were surprisingly still in the Pixie Scouts after a few months, which was almost like a miracle. Of course, they hated the Pixie Scouts and millions of times, it seemed anyway, Jayden wanted to know how it was possible for her mother to have been a part of such a group when she was younger. She could not picture Kim as a Pixie no matter how much she tried. It just did not link up in her mind knowing her mother now. Jayden always wondered, how in the hell it was possible for the kick-ass herpetologist/hero to have survived a stint in the Pixie Scouts?

The girls felt like the Pixie Scouts were just too, well, "girly." They hated the uniforms certainly. They were not fans of wearing skirts. They did not even wear skirts with their school uniforms anymore. There was a "no-pants" rule with the Pixie Scouts though and their mothers were insisting that they follow the rules "to the best of their abilities." So, they were stuck wearing the uniforms.

Other than the uniforms, they could not get into a lot of the activities that the Pixie Scouts did. They mostly hated the "arts and crafts" and typically drifted off to do their own thing, which generally involved breaking things to make something new. They scared the hell out of the troop den mother when they made a bolt gun, which confirmed that Raziya did, in fact, know how to build a firearm. Raziya normally supervised when they were making such things, but Mayah and Jayden were not without technical skills, so they did their own projects. Also, Jayden was a keen learner through observation, so on the few occasions that she watched Raziya build her own things, she had learned a lot about the mechanics in putting stuff together. The trio was full of surprises, mostly unwanted, thanks to those skills.

Every now and then, the troop would do something that the girls liked. There was drawing, which Raziya enjoyed greatly; although she had a habit of putting down most of the works of her fellow Pixie Scouts. Hey, she did not see anything wrong with telling the truth and the truth of the matter was that most of those girls could not draw; Jayden was included with that lot and the raven-haired girl knew it well.

There were nature walks, which Jayden and Mayah liked a lot. They sometimes frightened the den mother as they liked to run off when certain things caught their eyes; Raziya would follow them, even though she was not as enthusiastic about animals as they were. They were good for freaking out and angering the den mother.

The main problem actually had to do with the girls' personalities. They were all very domineering and forceful, like their mothers, so sometimes without meaning to, they bullied the other girls. It might have helped that they fought each other so much that the other girls were scared of them, thinking that the trio would physically battle with them too if they disagreed with the trio. Mayah. Raziya, and Jayden typically had no desire to fight with other people unless provoked in someway, but sometimes it was very easy to provoke them. Still, despite their temperaments and personalities, they had not gotten into any physical combat with their fellow Pixies. Their mothers were actually proud of them for that.

--------------

"Wait, say that again," Shego said to Jayden as she came into the house followed by Kim. The redhead had taken Jayden to her Pixie meeting because Shego had an emergency at work; usually, they both could take Jayden because the meetings were on the weekends.

"I have to sell cookies to pay for some damn camping trip thingy we're going on in a month," Jayden reported for a second time. She sounded just as excited that second time as she did the first, which was something short of wishing that she were dead to avoid having to actually do such a stupid thing.

Todd could not help himself; he burst into laughter. Jayden cut him a look of pure venom, but that did not shut him up. Everything about the whole "Pixie Scout thing" tickled the hell out of him when it came to his sister and her friends. He was a bit more understanding toward the boys and their Dragon Scout woes, although he thought that they were taking things too hard. The Scouts did not seem that bad in his opinion, but at least it gave him plenty of laughs at his sister's expense.

"Shut the hell up, Smiley!" Jayden barked.

"Make me," he retorted, knowing full well that she would take him up on that offer.

Jayden removed her shoe and pitched it at her brother. She probably would have hit a slower being that did not know her as well as Todd did, but he easily caught the projectile. She was undeterred and threw the second shoe at him. He dodged that one and then stuck his tongue out at her, teasing her since she was out of ammunition. She decided to turn her attention away from him and back to her mommy.

"Yeah, so I hafta sell stupid cookies," Jayden grumbled.

"Well, I'll take you up to the office tomorrow and we'll force everyone to buy to your cookies so you can go on the camping trip," Shego stated quite seriously.

"Maybe I don't wanna go fucking camping with them," the child muttered while folding her arms across her stomach.

"Ah, you know you wanna go," Shego teased while snatching her daughter up and ruffling her hair.

"It's probably gonna be boring," Jayden protested. Every time the Pixies did something that sounded like it could be fun, it turned out boring.

"It should be fun," Kim said while sitting down on the sofa next to Shego and Jayden. Todd was on the floor, doing something weird in the ladies' opinions; he was putting together a kite. He had plans to fly it with Jayden once he was done with it.

"Nah, they'll probably do stupid stuff, like sing around a fire or some dumb shit like that. That's not fun," Jayden pointed out.

"No, it ain't," Todd agreed. He hoped that they did more than that on the camping trip, although he had no doubt that his sister and her friends would liven things up if that was all they did.

"You have to give it a chance, munchkin," Shego said to her daughter in a gentle tone, hoping to get the girl out of her funk over a trip that she was going on whether she liked it or not.

"You always say that about the Pixie Scouts, even though every time I give them a chance, we do something stupid," Jayden argued vigorously.

"What about going to the zoo? You liked when you guys did that last week, right?" Kim pointed out.

"Yeah, but I coulda did that with you. I'd rather do it with you," Jayden grumbled while folding her arms across her chest now. She leaned against Shego while pouting something fierce, looking for pity it seemed, even though she knew that it was not going to help.

"You should give a try. You might like camping. And, we'll take you to the zoo soon," Kim replied with a smile while reaching over to caress the top of Jayden's head.

Jayden did not seem too assured by anything. She was happy to go to her mother's job the next day and watch Shego "sell" cookies. Betty was up there too, doing the same thing. Mayah and Jayden could not help smiling while their mothers worked. Betty actually had candy to sell too for Aztek because the Dragon Scouts were also going on a camping trip. Betty was mentally groaning already about what Aztek was going to bring back with him. She could only hope that Romah did come back, although she doubted that the Dragon Scouts were going to take the younger boys.

"Well, if nothing else, one of us is gonna sell the most cookies," Mayah remarked with an amused laugh because no one was turning their mothers down yet.

"Yeah, for a lame ass camping trip," Jayden reminded her friend.

The elder girl sighed; she hated being reminded of the camping trip. She was pretty sure that it was going to be lame too, especially if the nature walks were any indications of things. She had never been so bored with being outside before in her life, but it was better when they took nature walks than when they stayed inside.

"Wanna go help sell junk?" Jayden suggested with a devilish smile.

Mayah just nodded enthusiastically. She would take any excuse to yell at people and force them to buy something from her. Jayden just wanted an excuse to see her mother work up close and personal, and maybe actually get in the faces of some people with Shego. It was quite the thing for all of the employees of the Go City Justice Bureau to see the second generation of their boss and her right-hand woman.

"I thought they outlawed human cloning," someone remarked under his breath. Hey, Mayah and Jayden had to be clones of their mothers. It was the only way to explain the girls' personalities.

----(New day)

It was time to release their kids into the wild. The group of parents were not sure if they should worry more for the kids, as they did have a whole weekend in the woods to get lost or kill themselves or something like that, or if they should worry more of the people in charge. They were starting to wonder if they should have volunteered to go with them, or at least some of them volunteer, but they had not considered that until it was too late. The kids told their parents not to worry, which was only more cause for concern. How were they supposed to believe that the kids were going to be all right on their own? And how in the hell were they not supposed to worry when the little maniacs were telling them not to worry?!

Well, they supposed that everything would be all right as long as the Dragon Scouts and the Pixie Scouts were at two, very far campsites. If there was any way for Mayah, Raziya, and Jayden to get together with Bokuden and Aztek, they would probably unleash Hell, especially since their parents were miles away. It would make for an unforgettable weekend if they all did get together.

Nobunaga and Romah were not going on the trip. They were thankfully too young. No one wanted to know what Nobunaga might do around a campfire or what Romah might do near a lake. Nobunaga could possibly burn the state to the ground and Romah might never be seen again.

Ron did tell Bokuden that if he saw Bigfoot, he needed to snap a picture. Bokuden agreed while Yori just sighed. That was all she needed, Bokuden wandering in the woods looking for a fictional creature. It did not help matters that Bokuden believed in Bigfoot, which was mostly thanks to his father. She was really worried that she might not see her elder son again.

"So…figure they'll blow up something or just hurt someone really badly?" Shego wondered aloud as they watched the buses drive off with their kids and so many possible victims.

"Aztek is going to discover poison ivy or poison oak. I know this already," Betty sighed while shaking her head. She was holding Chyna in her arms; Chyna preferred being carried around by just about anyone, as long as she could avoid having to walk. Walking involved way too much falling for her liking while being carried not only had no falling, but also was less tiring.

"I hope Bo gets that picture of Bigfoot," Ron said quite seriously.

"If Bo even think he's sees Bigfoot, it's time to get him mental help," Monique commented. As quiet as she was, Yori partially agreed with that assessment, although she did take into account that Bokuden was a little kid and it was understandable for him to imagine seeing something.

"I wanna see Bigfoot!" Nobunaga whined. He wanted to go camping; there had to be a million things to throw rocks at in a forest. He could get dirty with Aztek, although he never got quite as dirty as the chocolate-skinned boy. And now he was hearing talks of Bigfoot. He would love to go catch a Bigfoot with his big brother.

"There is no Bigfoot," Monique tried to assure the boy.

"What? 'Course there's a Bigfoot! My daddy said so," Nobunaga argued. If his daddy said it, then it must be true, in his thinking anyway.

"What are you teaching this boy?" Betty asked Ron.

"Hey, there is a Bigfoot. Hundreds of people have seen it," the restaurant owner pointed out.

"Hundreds of people claim that aliens are stealing their sperm and eggs for weird hybrid offspring. Are we to believe them too?" Shego riposted.

"Hey, it could happen," Ron argued.

Shego threw her hands up in defeat; it was things like that that kept her from talking to Ron at all. They all split up after that since the kids were gone and most of them had other progeny to look after. Shego and Kim had to go pick up Todd from an arcade that they had dropped him off at earlier. Kim also had plans to take him to a professional baseball game, which they had two hours to get to. It was not their first time going to a professional sporting event and it would not be their last; it was one of Todd's favorite things to do with Kim. They all did pray to whatever divine being or beings there might possibly be that their kids at least made it back in one piece without missing limbs or fingers or eyes or any other body part and that they did not hurt anyone too badly while they were gone.

--------------

Mayah and Jayden were not impressed with the whole "camping" thing. It would seem that they were not going to be doing "real camping." They were not going to be sleeping in sleeping bags or in tents. The Pixies were going to be staying in cabins. That was pretty boring in their opinions; Raziya was not inclined to agree since she would take a bed over a sleeping bag any day of the week.

Ten seconds into the trip when they entered the cabin, the girls had the feeling that they were going to be annoyed. The omen came in the fact that the five other girls that they were sharing the cabin with screamed as if they were staring down the barrels of loaded guns because there was a small spider in the room. They panicked too, running around the room as if that was going to solve the problem of the spider. Mayah and Jayden rolled their eyes and would have been quite content to watch the girls pointlessly freak out, but Raziya did not want to bother with the noise and easily brushed the spider out of the cabin with her foot.

"If this is any indication of things…" Raziya just trailed off. Her friends knew what she was implying. If the girls' reaction to a small spider was any indication of how they reacted to wild life, it definitely was going to be a long weekend.

"I knew this was gonna be bullshit," Jayden muttered with a scowl on her face.

The trio decided to pick their beds while the other girls were still huffing about the spider, even though it was gone. The three girls took the beds at the far end of the cabin to be away from their annoying roommates. Mayah's eye twitched in anger after a few minutes of the irksome behavior.

"Will you silly bitches stop clucking about like chickens over something that's done and over with!" Mayah hollered in a fury. Raziya and Jayden could not help laughing over such words; they never would have thought to say something like that.

--------------

Aztek ate the first bug that he saw when he and other boys arrived at the campsite. Bokuden had not expected anything less; it seemed to be Aztek's habit to check out the taste of the local bug life whenever they went somewhere new. Once he was done with his bug, Aztek found the first dirt pile and proceeded to slide in it, despite the fact that there were rocks in the soil.

"Aztek," one of the Scout leaders groaned and went to go get a handle on the weird child.

Bokuden wandered off toward the thick woods, hoping to spot Bigfoot. He was stopped by another Scout leader before he got too far and was also scolded for "walking off." He did not understand the problem as he was going to come right back, after he snapped a photo of Bigfoot of course. But, he was not going to have the chance to do that for the moment and he also did not get the chance to explain himself, which was something that he detested.

"Come on, Bo, we're getting the camp together," the Scout leader called to the boy in annoyingly chipper tone. Bokuden sighed and went to go help get things together.

The first thing that the boys had to do was put up their tents. Aztek actually did not want to sleep in a tent; he had also tried to leave his sleeping bag behind, but his father made sure to pack it. He had planned to sleep on the ground, no matter how cold it got. He seemed to think that it would not bother him. He was going to share a tent with Bokuden, once the half-Japanese boy got the thing up anyway. It did not cross Aztek's mind to help with the contraption.

Bokuden was actually having trouble with the stupid tent and cursing it out in both English and Japanese, which were his two strongest languages. He was thoroughly reprimanded for his harsh language when one of the troop leaders heard him, although they only knew that he was swearing in English since none of them knew conversational Japanese, which Bokuden guessed was fortunate for him. He was told that Dragon Scouts did not use such "dreadful and detestable" language. He hated that they made it seem like cursing was the worst thing a person could do when he could think of a dozen things in under minute that he knew was worse than swearing. He did not even listen as the lecture continued on.

While Bokuden was being scolded for his "un-Dragon-like" language, Aztek was being pulled away from a mud puddle. He was now covered from head to toe in dirt and quite proud of it. The Scout leader that retrieved him was already a bit annoyed with him.

"Go do something productive," the man urged Aztek while gently shoving him toward the campsite.

Aztek went and picked some berries, thinking that it would be helpful. He tried to offer them to Bokuden, who was too frustrated with "the goddamn tent" to even notice that Aztek was next to him. The chocolate-skinned boy was not bothered by that and just went to share his find with some of the other boys.

"Here, guys, you can have these. I'm not all that hungry," Aztek said to the boys while holding out the berries in his hands.

The other boys took the berries from Aztek, not thinking anything of them. Hardly a minute after they were through, they were all complaining of stomach aches. Within a few hours, they were so sick that they had to go back home. It was about then that Aztek realized that the berries were poisonous, which made him happy that he had not eaten them. He did wish that it was a secret that he was the one that gave them the berries because while they were going home, he was getting in trouble.

For some reason that Aztek did not understand, the men in charge seemed to think that he purposely gave the other boys poisonous berries. He tried to assure them that he would never do such a thing…unless he did not like the boys anyway. But, he did not have anything against those guys and he was sorry for what he did. They thought his apology was insincere for a reason that was beyond him and continued on chastising him. After a couple of minutes, Aztek was bored with being reprimanded and just walked away to find something else to do. The men were so shocked by his behavior that they did not even go after him.

"This is stupid," Aztek complained to himself as he casually strolled off through the campsite, passing by his blonde friend.

Bokuden had finally managed to get the tent up on his own and he took a moment to admire his handiwork. The tent had hardly been up for two minutes before a couple of Dragon Scouts walked by, bumping the tent and it collapsed. Bokuden hollered to the heavens in Japanese and then spun around, roundhouse kicking one of the boys in the back. He had obviously lost his cool, which was very rare.

"What the?" the unharmed boy said while his friend fell face-first into the dirt. The two boys turned to glare at Bokuden.

The blonde boy found himself in a fight because of his lost composure. The two boys were no match for him, but the fight was broken up halfway through as a couple of the men in charge noticed the brawl. Bokuden was dragged away; he was still angrily hollering in both English and Japanese about how they knocked his tent over.

--------------

The girls had not been in the woods for more than a couple of hours before Jayden seemed to unleash a Biblical plague upon her fellow Pixie Scouts. The girls had all been allowed to explore the surrounding area, which included a pond. Jayden had discovered the mother load of all amphibians there and began gathering as many as she could, hoping that her mommy would let her keep them for a little while and she could study them with her mom. She put them all in her Care Bear duffle bag.

It would have all been fine if only a girl had not asked Jayden for some candy. It was well known that Jayden always had sweets of some kind with her and she shared for the most part. She directed the girl to her duffle bag, which was by a tree. Mayah remembered that the creatures were in Jayden's bag, but, god, she really wanted to see the reaction from the girl when she opened the bag, so she did not say anything.

The girl opened the main section of the bag and out sprang well over a dozen frogs and toads. Some salamanders crawled out, along with a few lizards that Jayden had come across. The girl screamed at the top of her lungs, as did several girls that were near her. Jayden threw her hands up in frustration as she saw her day's catch escaping.

"Wow, that was worth it," Mayah thought to herself as she watched her fellow scouts lose their minds over all of the slimy creatures. She was glad that she kept quiet.

"Goddamn it!" Jayden hollered as she started chasing all of her cold-blood critters with the hope of catching them all again.

"She shoulda saw that coming," Raziya muttered while sitting back with Mayah and watching all of the Pixies bug out over the creatures flooding the campsite. Jayden was going after the animals with vigor, but she was not having much luck since the panicking girls were getting in her way.

"Ah, you know sometimes she gets a little senile," Mayah remarked, while making a circle motion with her finger around her temple, gesturing that their friend was crazy. Sometimes, Jayden just forgot things, like the fact that if she directed someone to a duffle bag, the person was probably going to check the main pocket before any of the smaller ones.

Raziya nodded, agreeing that their friend both forgot things and was insane. Jayden never did catch all of the animals. Much to the girls' dismay, there were amphibians and lizards somewhere in the cabins and all around their safe campsite. The trio did not really care since they were used to animals point blank, whether wild or tame. The other Pixies were not so nonchalant and were quite angry with Jayden for the whole trip, especially when a cold-blooded critter just popped up out of nowhere.

"Oh, grow the fuck up," Jayden said to the frightened scouts with some disdain in her voice.

The trio was not done with ruining things for everyone else, as far as the other Pixies were concerned anyway. Mayah terrorized a few girls because they were "acting fucking stupid" in her opinion. So, she wasted no time in chastising and yelling at them for their behavior, especially when they started complaining about bugs.

"We're out in the fucking woods, what the fuck do they expect?" Jayden inquired in disbelief with a totally confused expression on her face. Mayah agreed with that and just barked on the scouts about that. Raziya was so incredulous that she could not even holler at the other girls.

The trio could not help thinking that the other girls were such crybabies, especially when the sun went down. They acted like they had never been in the dark before in her opinion; Jayden and Raziya agreed and merely backed Mayah when she started hollering at girls to stop behaving so moronically. Mayah spent most of the trip reprimanding the Pixie Scouts for their behavior. It was fun for her and her friends.

The worst thing that the trio did as far as everyone around was concerned was when they were all sitting around the campfire and telling ghost stories while roasting marshmallows; not to mention, dodging frogs and toads that were coming out of nowhere to eat the insects attracted to the light. No one would have expected the gruesome tales that a nine-year-old and two eight-year-olds could bring up, but boy, Mayah, Raziya, and Jayden surprised the hell out of them. Only the trio slept that night.

--------------

Bokuden rose from his sleeping bag in the middle of the night. He was going to go hunt for Bigfoot while everyone was asleep, so he would not be disturbed and he would not get into any more trouble. He had never been scolded so much in his life than he had that first day of camping. He also never cursed so much in his life. He had never had a more irksome time outdoors than he was having with the damned Dragon Scouts.

He wandered off into the woods, failing to notice that he caught the attention of one of the men in charge. Bokuden did quickly figure out that he was being followed, though. He showed off his ninja skills and practically vanished as far as the man following him was concerned.

While the guy was busy wondering where Bokuden went, the blonde boy sprang into action. He came in from behind the guy, punching him in the back of the knees. As the guy fell to the ground in pain, Bokuden threw a small container to the ground, which released a white powder. The man began sneezing and his eyes started to water. He climbed to his feet, hoping to escape the dust. Bokuden vanished back into the trees.

The blonde boy watched carefully as the man stumbled about for a couple of seconds and then dropped out of sight. Little did Bokuden know, but the man had fallen into a bog. He climbed out after a while and was covered in mud, sticks, and leaves.

"Bigfoot," Bokuden thought in awe and he snapped several pictures with the camera that he brought for just such an emergency. He did wonder what happened to the guy following him, but he did not think too much on it because he was busy loving the fact that he got to see Bigfoot.

With his mission complete, Bokuden went back to his tent and slept quite contently, especially since he had not been followed back to camp. Imagine his surprise when he woke up the next morning to find that he was already in trouble. He sighed; he hated camping and he hated the Dragon Scouts.

----(New day)

For some reason, the parents were a bit shocked to find out that their kids had been kicked out of the scouts by the end of the camping trip. They had expected it, but it was still surprising because the kids had lasted so long. It was especially surprising that Bokuden got kicked out when he was the best behaved out of the kids when he was on his own.

But, when the bus pulled up and all of the kids filed out, the adults in charge handed the parents some very long list of complaints, citing the reasons that their children were no longer welcomed at scouting functions or meetings. Some of the complaints were actually crimes, as assault was listed on every one of their complaint sheets.

One thing that insulted the parents of Mayah, Raziya, and Jayden were that their scout leaders had actually suggested getting the girls psychological help, especially Raziya. The recommendation was mostly based on the horror stories that the girls told around the campfire. Raziya's tale had been especially gory, violent, and vividly detailed; to the point that it was her story that kept the adults up that now infamous night. Felix only laughed when he heard the reason for the suggestion.

"Don't laugh, it's your fault," Monique pointed out in a huff with her face twisted in a fury. She was damned mad that someone would suggest that their daughter needed to see a therapist because of her ability to tell a horror story on par with some masters of gore.

"Can I help it if we have the same taste in movies?" Felix asked with a smile. He still watched slasher movies with the kids and very often with Raziya. His daughter loved the movies just as much as he did. She actually added a bit of humor to their movie watching by yelling at the screen, which was something that all of the kids did.

"Whoa, you unleashed a terror of frogs, toads, and lizards onto the campsite?" Todd said to Jayden in an unmistakably proud tone. He leaned down to give his little sister a hand slap for such an accomplishment.

"And all the girls freaked," Jayden added with a proud grin, which only made her brother appear all the more impressed.

"A lot," Mayah chimed in. She was standing next to Todd, holding onto his pants' pocket for whatever reason. He did not say anything about her being near him because he was not bothered by it…yet.

"I bet you helped," Todd said to the nine-year-old with an amused smile on his face and he ruffled her hair just a bit.

"Well, let's just say, I didn't try to stop it," Mayah remarked with a bit of a smile, feeling elated that the redheaded teen had touched her.

"Stop encouraging them, Smiley," Betty scolded the pale teenager. He could be such a bad influence sometimes, she thought.

"I wasn't really trying to," Todd replied with a sheepish grin. He was just impressed by them. It was no small thing to let loose a plague unto an entire campground.

"Did you get the picture of Bigfoot?" Ron asked Bokuden, rather eager to hear the answer.

"I dunno if it's Bigfoot. It might be like a swamp monster or something," Bokuden replied while showing his father and his little brother the few pictures he snapped at night of a creature that he felt might be Bigfoot. He had a digital camera, so he was able to go through his pictures for them on the screen.

"Swamp monster," Nobunaga concluded soundly when he saw the pictures. It did not have enough fur to be a Bigfoot.

"Yeah, it does sorta look like a swamp monster," Ron concurred. "Which is just as super cool!" he declared. His sons grinned and they all shared a high-five.

Yori did not have the heart to tell her boys that the picture looked suspiciously like a man covered in mud. She was rather disappointed in Bokuden getting kicked out of the Dragon Scouts and planned to have a long talk with him to get him to explain his behavior, especially of all the things that were listed on the complaint sheet. Ron was with her on that since he could not understand why their rather well-behaved son had gotten such a bad report.

Everyone went home and sat down to talk to their kids. As usual, getting the kids points of view showed for the most part that they did not mean any harm. On a few items, the kids did admit to just being annoyed with their fellow scouts, which led to lectures about having patience and understanding for other people. It was weird for such open-minded kids to be rather intolerant, but as Jayden once put it, they were really only intolerant toward stupid behavior. Shego and Betty really could not scold their kids for something like that considering how they felt about stupid behavior.

Well, the scouting thing had lasted longer than expected at least. They were just going to have to figure out something else for the kids to do. Or they were just going to have to hope that the group actually calmed down on their own as time went by.

--------------

Next time: family vacation in a jungle.


	34. Reason Thirtyfour: Wild out

I don't own these characters. I don't own the original premise that this saga is based on either. I do own Todd, Jayden, Maddie, and Rosa.

Reason Thirty-four: Wild out

_Time for an adventure._

"Smiles, this is like the coolest fucking day ever," Jayden declared with a grin while zipping up one of her duffle bags. She was bouncing around on the balls of her feet, practically beaming with energy.

Todd only smiled a bit in return. He could understand his little sister's enthusiasm. They were about to go on a trip with their mothers. It was actually a bit of a business trip for Kim. They were going to the rainforest and that was why Jayden was so excited. She had not been back to a jungle since the time she was little and Kim had gotten into so much trouble for it. But, now, she was nine and she guessed that Kim was finally keeping her promise to take her back.

Todd was almost as excited as Jayden, but he had been on quite a few trips with Kim. It seemed that Shego was all right with Kim taking their kids to rainforests as long as the kid was a teenager because she had started taking Todd out when he was thirteen. He was now sixteen, about to be seventeen. His short crimson hair was ruffled as he had not bothered to brush it that day. He was still pale as ever despite all of the time that he spent outside. He was a little over six feet tall and muscular with broad shoulders thanks to the fact that he still played baseball and football.

"It's gonna be fun, right?" Jayden asked while circling her brother, who was attempting to finish packing his own things.

"Of course it's gonna be fun," he answered. That was a given. They were going into a jungle with Kim. There was no way for it to not be fun.

"Okay, where's Mom and Mommy? We gotta go!" the little girl practically howled. She was just so eager to get moving, which would explain why she just kept bouncing around the room.

"Calm down, monster. They'll be back in a minute," he assured the hyperactive girl.

Jayden sighed and grabbed her rubix cube to keep herself occupied until their mothers got back. Todd checked over all the bags to make sure he did not forget anything or that Jayden did not forget anything; she was notorious for leaving behind essential items, like her toothbrush. As far as he could tell, they had everything that they would need and more and if they did forget anything, they would find out when Shego triple-checked the luggage when she got in.

Shego did check all the bags when she and Kim returned to the house; they had to go take care of some last minute business. Shego could not believe that she had been talked into using her vacation time to go to hot, smelly jungle, but it was not like that was the first time that it happened. Once it was certain that everyone had everything that they would need to survive, and not get on Shego's nerves while doing it, they made their way to the airport.

It was surprising that Jayden did not get them thrown off the plane in mid-flight. Well, Jayden and Shego combined as they did tag-team a guy that complained about the olive-eyed child kicking the back of his seat. By the end of it, it seemed like he had been in the wrong for having the nerve to be irked with Jayden for kicking his seat. He even apologized to her and to her family. Kim and Todd just looked at each other in disbelief, even though they knew that should have expected as much.

Todd also had to deal with two decidedly hot chicks hitting on him. They were sitting across from him; he had the aisle seat. At first it started with some light flirting on their part, which he shamelessly encouraged. He had a shy demeanor that seemed to attract girls to him. It probably helped that he often wore shirts that showed off his muscles and the way that he carried himself gave off a powerful presence. Girls usually drooled over him when they first saw him and the pair across from him were no different.

"Careful, Smiles. Mayah might find out," Shego teased the teen, who gawked at the implications behind the remark.

"Don't even joke like that, She-she," Todd replied quite seriously.

Jayden wondered what her mother and brother meant. Despite her genius, some things still went over her head. She did not understand Mayah's utter fascination with her older brother. Sure, Todd was cool and everything, but she did not think that he deserved all of the credit that Mayah gave him.

The nine-year-old also did not understand her brother's apparent terror from Mayah's interest in him. Kim and Shego assured her that she would figure it out when she was older. Shego also frightened Todd by telling him that Mayah was going to figure it out even more when she got older. He did not see the humor in such comments; Mayah was ten for crying out loud.

Mayah honest and truly frightened Todd like nothing else could or probably would. Whenever he was around her, she would latch onto him. She often introduced him to her friends or classmates as her husband. It got to the point that he did not even like going up to their school for functions or to pick them up as he sometimes was asked to do if he was around. She was going to get him arrested, he often thought.

Todd went back to flirting with the two girls, even though he doubted anything would come of it. They had offered him their phone numbers and everything, but he was not planning to call them, even though they seemed rather eager for that. He just knew that he had nothing in common with them and would not have anything to talk about once they got off the plane.

Todd had had a few of girlfriends since he had become a teenager, but they were nothing to dwell on. Most of them described him as "weird" and they did not mean it in a good way. A couple just did not get along with his sister or his She-she; the pair had cursed out one of his girlfriends and it was not a pretty sight. And most girls just broke up with him because he did not seem to have the time for them that they wanted or he just seemed like a space-case to them. He had never been in a "relationship" longer than a month, but that never bothered him too much.

At first, when Todd learned why girls broke up with him, it did hurt his feelings, but that did not last long. Between having talks with Kim, Ron, and Felix, he learned that he should not let such sentiments get to him. They assured him that he would one day find the girl that was right for him. Felix then joked that it would be funny if that girl was Mayah and Todd looked totally aghast with that notion.

The Possible-Gooding family slept a great deal of the flight, mostly because they had a long walk ahead of them when they got off of the plane and they wanted to make sure that they had the energy for it. They picked on their luggage as if it was hiking gear when they did land and they started off for their destination. Jayden tried her best to keep up with her family through the trek, but they did not expect her to walk the whole distance on her own. Todd volunteered to carry Jayden on his shoulders. Jayden did not object, nor did the parents; Kim and Shego figured that they would let Todd attempt to be a gentleman.

They arrived at their destination after an hour and a half; it usually did not take that long, but Jayden had added time on the trip because she could not walk as fast as the older members of her family. They entered a village that was going to be their home for the next couple of weeks and Jayden sprang to life.

"This place is so cool!" the raven-haired child practically cooed with a grin.

"You've barely seen it," Todd pointed out, just to burst her bubble.

"It's cool anyway," Jayden replied matter-of-factly.

Todd looked around the village. There were several small wooden homes lined up. He scanned for any signs of electricity, but there was none, just as he had been told. He could not wait to see what life was going to be like for the next two weeks with no electricity and no telephones. He was looking forward to it.

"Where's the snake place, Mom?" Jayden asked eagerly, still smiling up a storm. She wanted to see people working on snake bites and administering antivenin, especially if it was her mother's world famous formula. She was still trying to fully understand how her mother's universal anti-venom worked.

"It's not a snake place, Jade. It's a clinic," Kim answered.

"It's got snake venom in it," Jayden pointed out, undeterred by the correction.

The redheaded hero laughed; she could not argue that point. The family was greeted by Kim's colleague, known affectionately as Doctor Big Mike. Kim introduced Big Mike to her kids; he had already made Shego's acquaintance several times through the years. Jayden was amazed to meet such a giant. Todd was a little astonished himself because it was not often that he met a man he needed to crane his head to see.

Shego had one question for both doctors. "That Gil asshole isn't coming back, is he?"

"Good question," Kim said and she did not know the answer.

"Doctor Lurkin didn't say anything about it. He wasn't even sure if he was going to come. He figured me and Doctor Kimmie could handle things. We should be able to do it if he doesn't show up," Big Mike declared confidently. It was not like it was a difficult thing.

"We have some graduate students to look out for, right?" Kim asked. Well, that was one of the reasons that she was there anyway.

"Yeah, but they're not going to be here for a couple more days. They're probably going to want help on things, but they should be good at hunting for reptiles on their own and working in the clinic if they're assigned to it. We'll see. You should just get settled in and everything," Big Mike told the family.

Kim and Shego nodded in agreement. The couple walked off with Todd following behind them; Jayden was still on his shoulders. They went to a small house that looked like the surrounding houses and Kim rapped lightly on the door. As soon as the door was opened, Kim was grabbed into an excited hug.

"Hey, Maddie," Kim said before she even got a good look at who was embracing her. She just knew the hug.

"Hey, Kim!" Maddie grinned as she released the redheaded scientist.

Shego was surprised to find out that the young woman holding Kim was Maddie. She remembered Maddie from when she was younger than Jayden was. She had not been back at the village in many years, but Kim often showed pictures to Shego of Maddie and her mother from her visits. Still, Maddie's appearance was shocking.

Maddie had blossomed into quite the beautiful young woman, which Shego expected since Maddie had been a cute kid. She still had the same brilliant blue eyes and long brown hair with golden streaks in them. Her hair even still curled slightly at the ends while falling just passed her shoulder blades. She was wearing a yellow sundress that showed off her healthy caramel complexion and well-proportioned figure. Todd looked like he had fallen in love at first sight.

"Hey, wipe that expression off your face," Shego told her son when she caught sight of the dopey look in his lime green eyes.

"What?" Todd tried to act like nothing was wrong. He did remind himself that he had seen plenty of hot chicks in his time, so he needed to act like it and not embarrass himself or his parents while he was staying in the village. Still, the young lady before him was just plain stunning.

"You should forget about it, pal. Maddie's engaged," Kim informed the redheaded teenager.

"Engaged?" Todd echoed as if he did not understand. Maddie did not look like she could be any older than he was.

"Very engaged," Maddie assured him with a smile while flashing the ring on her finger. It was a simple gold band, but it got the message across.

"Well, they say the good ones are always taken," Todd remarked with a smile of his own and a lighthearted laugh.

"So, where's your mom?" Kim asked Maddie with a curious expression on her face.

"She should be back soon. Dad drove her to the market to pick up some things for your stay," Maddie answered. "So, come on in and we can all wait for her."

The caramel-skinned teenager ushered the family into the small home. She directed them to drop their bags anywhere, which they did. Shego, Todd, and Jayden looked around the small home. It only had one bedroom, which the kids had already been warned about. They were staying there because Maddie's mother had insisted upon it when she found out that Kim and Shego were coming to the village.

"I hope this stay isn't as exciting as your last visit," Maddie remarked, speaking to Shego.

"As long as that Gil asshole stays away, I'm sure everything should be fine," the raven-haired officer replied.

"Yeah, you know the funny thing is that there are still a few animals around here that look all weird thanks to him," Maddie reported. She had seen one weird animal a few years ago, but she had not seen any recently. She had heard some things from other people, though.

"Damn idiot, fish-frog thing. Corrupting animals and shit for his dumb-ass ideas," the green-skinned woman muttered.

"Oh, what happened? What's the story?" Jayden asked eagerly. Whenever her mommy sounded so annoyed with a person that was not even around, she knew that there was some great, fascinating story behind it.

After introducing Maddie to Jayden and Todd, Shego went into explaining to her kids what happened the last time she had visited the village. After the tale, Todd and Jayden were hoping that Gil did show up and that there were more feathered serpents flying around somewhere in the jungle. They wanted as many exciting things as possible to happen while they were out.

After the story, Maddie's mother came in. Rosa entered the house and was pleasantly surprised to see that her company had arrived. She quickly went over to Kim and Shego and hugged the both of them. She was also happy to introduce her husband to Shego; Kim had already met the fellow before.

"This is my husband, Pedro. Pedro, this is Kim's wife, Shego," Rosa said with a bright, pleased smile on her face.

Shego reached over to shake hands with the rather short and handsome man. Rosa was now in her early thirties, but she was aging well. She was wearing a plain white tee-shirt and capri pants. Her deep chocolate eyes seemed to sparkle as she spoke. Her dark brown hair was pulled back into a long ponytail.

Pedro was a slender fellow, who stood a few inches under six feet. He had unruly ebony hair that was going straight up; it almost looked like he styled it that way, but it was clear that he had not. He had deep brown eyes with an earthy brown complexion. He was dressed in a plain sleeveless tee-shirt and tan cargo shorts.

"Nice to meet you," Pedro said politely and sincerely to Shego, smiling as he spoke. "I've heard a lot about you from Kim."

"I hope she warned you more about the devils you're allowing into your house," Shego remarked, nodding toward her kids.

Pedro laughed a bit. "She speaks very highly of your son and daughter."

"In your face, She-she," Todd commented while making a face at her.

"Yeah, in ya face!" Jayden joined in, going so far as to point at her mommy.

"Hey, guys, remember, we have to live with her," Kim reminded to the kids of a very important fact that they needed to keep in mind at all times.

"Right, we do have to go home with her," Todd said and Jayden nodded. They both turned to Shego and grinned widely as apologies.

"Too late, you two," the green-skinned woman informed the duo.

"Damn it," the siblings muttered. They were going to be in for it when they got home; their mothers never forgot anything.

"Hey, Mom, can we see the snake place now?" Jayden requested with a pleading look in her eyes.

"It's not a snake place," Kim replied again.

"Whatever!" the child whined/huffed; it was an odd mix of the two that she pulled off every now and then when it came to her mothers. She did not care what the place was called, but she knew that it was the place that people went when they were bitten by snakes and she wanted to check it out.

"I'm going to take her over to see the clinic," Kim informed her spouse and hosts.

"I'll come too," Todd said because he was interested in seeing the building also. He also thought that there was a chance that he would get to see Kim's antivenin at work, which was just as much a curiosity to him as it was to Jayden. No matter how many times they went over it, they just could not figure out how she did it and they were dedicated to figuring it out.

"I'll hang around you guys," Maddie said, joining the departing trio.

"Smiles, you keep your fucking hands to yourself, hear me?" Shego ordered as the group started leaving the house. She was mostly joking with him, but she knew that he would take her seriously.

"What kinda guy are you trying to make them think I am, She-she?" Todd inquired with a frightful look on his face. He would never try to push up on a woman that was engaged.

Shego only laughed; she liked teasing Todd almost as much as liked teasing Kim. He panicked a lot more than Kim did with the teasing and now that he was a teenager, he refused to whine or throw tantrums like Kim would to get her way. Shego was actually very proud of the man that Todd was becoming, but she still had to tease him about it.

"You were joking about that, right?" Pedro asked Shego to be sure.

"Oh, yeah. Smiley's not going to put any moves on Maddie. He's a gentleman through and through, even though he doesn't look like it," Shego answered. Her son was a respectable young man, which was one of the reasons that she was so proud of him. She believed that one day he would make a woman very happy, if she would only give him the chance to do so.

Pedro took her word on it since Rosa seemed to believe her. He then excused himself because he had "appointments" to keep. He was one of the few people around the village with a vehicle, so he often drove people around to places that they needed to go when he had the free time to do it and when he was around.

"So, how have you been, Shego?" Rosa inquired curiously.

"Good. Married Kimmie and all," Shego pointed out, showing that she had to be all right to have finally realized what most other people knew, which was Kim was great. She was fortunate to have the fiery redhead in her life and she was never going to let the hyper hero go.

"You still call her your pet sometimes?" Rosa asked with a bit of a laugh.

"Only when no one's around," the pale woman answered with a devilish smirk. "Nice to see you settled down. Where'd you find Pedro?"

"He actually found me one day when I was in the city with Kim. He bumped into me. He's a very clumsy man, but I think he's cute," Rosa replied with a smile and a slight blush. She was very happy to have met Pedro since no man in her village would ever think to touch her considering her past. Pedro did not care about any of that and was just pleased to have her in his life.

"One person's flaw is another person's attraction. So, Maddie still your only kid or do you have kids with Pedro?"

"I have two other children with Pedro. I wish they were here. They could've played with Jade, but they're visiting their grandparents in the city. They're going to be there for the rest of the month."

Shego nodded. "That's good. What's this about Maddie being engaged?"

"Oh, she's going to marry a boy from her school. She's going to college and everything. Isn't that great? I mean, I never even went to grade school, yet my daughter is going to college," Rosa reported in an excited and proud tone.

"That is fantastic," Shego concurred because she agreed with her hostess and she understood how Rosa was feeling. "You're moving on up in the world. So, you still live here or you live in the city?"

"Well, I go back and forth. This is my home and I love this place, but Pedro works in the city and the kids go to school in the city, so that's where I am most of the time," the younger woman explained.

Her guest nodded a bit, showing that she understood. The pair continued to converse, trying to catch up with each other's lives. They seemed like old friends and they liked to think of each other as such, even though they had only interacted a few times in all of the years that they had known each other.

--------------

Todd was standing with Maddie while looking around the clinic that was located in the village. Kim was showing Jayden everything at the child's request. Jayden wanted to know what everything was, what it did, and how it did it, even though she already knew what most of the items were, what they did, and how they were used. Still, she enjoyed when her mom explained things because Kim put everything just right for her daughter to totally comprehend everything.

"Your sister's really energetic," Maddie commented while watching Jayden go.

"That's one way to put it. The other would be that she's hyper as hell," Todd replied with a small smile that seemed to just be glued to his face when he talked.

"I've got little brothers," Maddie said to show that she understood the child somewhat. Her brothers were not as bouncy and curious as Jayden, but she did not think ill of Jayden for her behavior.

"I've got something like little brothers," he remarked. He was close with Bokuden, Nobunaga, Aztek, and Romah and he knew that they all kind of looked up to him, just like he looked up to Ron and Felix.

"Something like little brothers?" she echoed in a puzzled tone with a face to match.

Todd took the time explain what he meant. She nodded, showing that she was now following what he was saying. They continued on speaking. Maddie asked about how Todd got the name "Smiley." She thought it was his real name until he explained that it was a shortening of a nickname that was given to him when he was younger, but he did use it like it was his real name. It was the name that he used to introduce himself; it was the name his teachers used; he even signed it as his name. He eventually asked her about being engaged.

She talked very highly of the young man that she was engaged to. Her face remained bright throughout the time that she went on to describe her fiancé. He could not help smiling just because of her expression and her energy. He hoped that one day he would find a girl that would speak so highly of him and praise him to a complete stranger like Maddie was doing with her fiancé.

"So, you're a college student," Todd said when she was done singing the praises of her man. She mentioned meeting the guy in college, which was how Todd knew she was a student. "So, what are you studying to be?" he asked.

"I want to be a doctor and work right here in this clinic," Maddie answered while pointing down to emphasize her point. "What about you? You're going to be a herpetologist like Kim?"

Todd laughed a bit; it was actually an uncomfortable sound. He looked away, almost as if he was ashamed of what he was about to say. "I want to be a paleontologist," he informed her.

"A paleontologist? You mean those guys that study dinosaurs?" she asked curiously. She had never run into anyone that wanted such a career. Really, the only reason that she knew about them was through television shows.

"They study more than just dinosaurs," he replied, but he did not go too much into the field because he did not want to bore her. "I'm really curious about the past and everything," he explained.

"You don't have to justify yourself to me. And I don't think you have to worry about not wanting to follow in Kim's footsteps," she commented because of the reaction he had when she asked if he was going to have the same career as his Kimmie.

Todd sighed and ran his hand through his wild crimson hair. "I was gonna follow in her footsteps…" he trailed off, not too sure if he wanted to go into that subject. His face was crestfallen, as if he was brokenhearted about the decision that he made.

"She'll understand if you want to walk another path. I'm sure you know she's a very understanding person."

He nodded. "I know, but I feel more like I betrayed myself by not following in her footsteps. I mean, I idolized her when I was little and I feel like if the little me met me now, I'd hate me for deciding to do something other than herpetology." He hoped that made sense to her because it did to him.

"You should do what you love," Maddie said and she was willing to bet that his idol would tell him the same. "And maybe get a haircut when you do it," she added as a joke to lighten things up.

Todd laughed a bit. "I'm gonna get one when I go back home. I usually at least brush my hair when I leave the house to not look like a hobo, but I was really busy today, so I didn't get to it."

Maddie looked amused. Jayden noticed the two teenagers from the far end of the room. She grabbed her mother and pointed in their direction for Kim to see. She just thought it was weird that they were getting along as they were.

"Isn't Smiley not listening to Mommy by doing that?" Jayden asked. She did not understand too much on what was going on, but she knew flirting somewhat and that looked like flirting. She just did not understand the purpose of flirting.

"He's keeping his hands to himself," Kim answered. Todd was not touching Maddie in any way, especially not a familiar way. He was standing almost a foot away from her.

"Are you sure?" the nine-year-old inquired. She had to take her mother's word on abstract matters, like teenage interactions.

"Yeah, he's actually listening to Mommy very well," the scientist assured her daughter.

"Okay. So, are you gonna take me into the jungle and we go frog hunting?" Jayden inquired with her hopeful sparkle in her olive eyes.

"Well, I need to do some snake hunting since there's supposed to be an unidentified snake around here, but we can always look for new frog species too," Kim answered. There were always new animals waiting to be found in a jungle.

"New snakes? With venom?" Jayden inquired eagerly. While she liked all snakes, venomous ones were her passion, like her mom. She was very interested in venoms and hoped to one day be able to study them as deeply as her mother did.

"Maybe. I don't know yet. I need to catch it and examine it. So, we'll go into the jungle soon," the hero promised.

Jayden grinned because of the pledge. Oh, she was going to have so much fun. She felt like she was going to burst from anxiety. She just could not wait. She wondered if Todd was going to come too, so she ran over to ask him. Even though Todd was in the middle of a conversation, he did politely halt it to pay attention to the irksome little nine-year-old monster in front of him.

"What's going on, mini-monster?" Todd inquired, using their parents' nickname for Jayden.

"We're gonna go hunt for new species. You gonna come? It'll be fun. You could bring your girlfriend," the little girl answered while nodding toward Maddie.

"Jade, don't be rude," Todd scolded her.

"It was just a joke is all," Jayden tried to assure her brother, but he was not buying it, which did bother her. As much as she liked to tease and taunt her brother, she disliked actually upsetting him.

"No, apologize," Todd ordered.

"No, that's quite all right. I know how younger siblings can be, after all," Maddie replied. She just hoped that Jayden did not say such things too loudly or around people that might try to badmouth her to her fiancé when they saw him, not that he would believe any of them since people in the village did often try to badmouth her to him. One of the burdens of being a pariah.

"You got off lucky this time, Jade," Todd commented. His little sister's response was to stick her tongue out at him since she got away with things and he did not seem angry with her anymore. Todd rolled his eyes at her antics.

Maddie laughed at the exchange. They probably would have continued talking, maybe even included Jayden, but they momentarily distracted. A middle-aged blonde man came into the clinic. He was followed by a younger man, but he was clearly in his thirties, maybe his late thirties if the bags underneath his eyes were any indication of things. The siblings' interest was piqued when their mother noticed the new arrivals and gasped.

"Gil," Kim muttered in shock. Oh, Shego was going to hit the ceiling when she found out about him being back.

--------------

Next time: with Gil comes trouble for the Possible-Gooding family.

Maddie and Rosa show up in The Gods Must Be Laughing chapters 36-38.


	35. Reason Thirtyfive: Fried frog

I don't own these characters or the original premise behind this saga. I also don't own the Care Bears. I do own Todd and Jayden.

Reason Thirty-five: Fried frog

_Sometimes, there isn't even a word to cover how angry someone can make you._

Todd and Jayden were a little curious about the two new men that entered the clinic that they were currently standing in. They were curious because of Kim's reaction to men; she had gasped in shock. Her kids were stunned that her mouth did not hit the floor from her expression. The hero had reacted in such a way because the two men were Doctor Peter Lurkin and his stepson, Gilbert Moss.

The last time Kim had seen Gil, well, it had not been very pleasant. He had transformed himself into a mutant amphibian out of a jealousy and attacked not only Kim, but the whole village that welcomed them and their research team. He had assumed his formula for turning people and animals into mutants deserved more recognition than Kim for her universal snake antivenin. Shego had not been too happy about him attacking her at-the-time-pet and making light of Kim's brilliant work. Shego was not going to be thrilled when she saw Gil and Kim knew that for the simple fact that she was not pleased to see him again either.

"Doctor Possible, it's been such a long time," Doctor Lurkin said as he approached Kim and shook her hand.

"It sure has," Kim replied with a friendly smile on her face. She did not have anything against the blonde man, even if Gil was his stepson. She did not blame Doctor Lurkin for the things that Gil had done.

The reason Kim and Doctor Lurkin had not seen each other in a long time was because Doctor Lurkin stopped working at Go University a few years ago. He had been keeping up with Kim's work and it seemed a little incredible for him to be standing before a woman that had once been his student, but was now way more accomplished than he believed he could ever imagine being. But, he had to admit, it made sense since Kim was just plain amazing.

"Let me introduce you to my kids," Kim said to Doctor Lurkin.

"All right," he agreed with a nod.

Kim motioned for Todd and Jayden to come over, which they did. She introduced them with a bright smile on her face. They noted how well she spoke if Doctor Lurkin, so they knew that he was a man to be respected. But, they also noted that Gil was ignored, so they concluded that something was wrong with him specifically.

"You're a strapping looking young man," Doctor Lurkin commented, eyeing Todd, who was about half-a-head taller than the blonde man. There was also the fact that Todd was muscular and it showed thanks to his sleeveless tee-shirt and shorts.

"Thanks I guess," Todd replied with a bit of a shrug. He was not sure what else he should say.

"So, you're here to learn something about herpetology?" the blonde male inquired curiously.

"Of course," Todd answered. That was a given whenever he went anywhere with Kim where cold-blooded creatures might live.

"Me too!" Jayden chimed in, waving her arms to draw attention to herself. She did not like being ignored, especially since she knew just as much as her brother about herpetology. Sometimes, she liked to think that she knew more about the subject than he did.

"Oh, my," Doctor Lurkin said in surprise, his eyes went wide for a moment. He had not expected her enthusiasm it would seem and that was why he was taken aback by her chiming in.

Kim laughed a bit as Jayden decided to show that she probably knew more than her big brother when it came to snakes and other cold-blooded creatures. Doctor Lurkin could not help smiling as the child talked. Todd did not even bother coming into the conversation.

"She's just like you, Kim. You must be so proud," Doctor Lurkin said to the redhead after getting a lecture from Jayden about the venomous snakes indigenous to the area that they were in.

"I'm very proud of both of them," Kim assured him with a grin. She was extremely proud of her kids, even if they acted out every now and then.

"Proud of a brat," Gil spat, speaking mostly to himself. Kim frowned and she was going to say something, but her daughter beat her to it. Jayden also beat Todd to saying something.

"Fuck you, buddy. You don't know us," the little girl told Gil with some force in her voice. Everyone not related to her was visibly taken aback by that response. They had never heard a nine-year-old curse so precisely; she sounded like a grown woman.

"Wow," Maddie muttered, almost as if she was impressed. She felt the need to speak, but she did not know what to say, except for that one word.

"Yeah, Jade does things like that," Todd commented, noticing the other teen's shock expression.

"Watching her grow up has got to be quite a thing," Maddie remarked, still wide-eyed from Jayden's vocabulary.

"It's certainly entertaining," he quipped with a half-smile. Watching Jayden grow up was like an adventure, but it was pleasant a lot of the time when Jayden was not purposely getting on his nerves. He would never admit it out loud, but he liked spending time with his little sister.

Kim cut her time in the clinic short once Gil showed up. Doctor Lurkin did step aside to speak with her for a moment, which Jayden thought was annoying because she was under the impression that she and her mother were going to go hunt snakes now that they were leaving. Doctor Lurkin did not keep Kim for too long. He explained that Gil could not turn into a mutant anymore and he was just there for research purposes like everyone else that would be arriving to stay in the village for a couple of weeks. Kim nodded to show that she understood, but she doubted that Gil was just there for the same reasons as everyone else; she just did not voice that.

"So…now, can we go?" Jayden inquired eagerly, speaking to her mother.

"Yes, we can. Smiley, you coming?" Kim asked.

"Oh, yeah. I'm definitely coming," Todd answered. He turned his attention back to Maddie, who smiled at him.

"You don't have to walk me home or anything like that," she told him, almost as if she could read his mind because he was wondering just that.

"Oh, okay. So, I'm going to go run around the jungle and get dirty like every little boy wants to," the redheaded teenager remarked with a smile.

Maddie could not help laughing at that. She could imagine him being like Kim while in the jungle. She had seen Kim in action many times, getting dirty, diving after creatures and sliding in the mud. Todd did plan on doing just such things; that was the point of being in a jungle in his opinion. He had to get muddy.

--------------

"I got it!" Jayden hollered as she belly-flopped into some lush ground plant life. The idea that she could somehow get hurt never seemed to enter her mind.

"You're going to scare it away screaming like that," Todd pointed out while crawling into the plant after his sister.

"You two are going to get bitten going in there like that," Kim informed them with a laugh. She used to dive in places just like that, though. But, she was not nearly as reckless as she used to be.

"We're not that stupid," Jayden replied, not being a smart-aleck, but speaking the plain truth in her opinion. She was out of sight thanks to the long leaves of the plant that she was currently in. "Damn it, where'd it go?" the child grumbled.

"I think it got away," Todd informed her as he continued searching around for the animal.

"No, to hell with that!" Jayden declared, as if she could make the creature reappear, so that they could gather it up.

Kim chuckled a bit again. Jayden's swearing was not as bad as it used to be, but when the child got excited, she seemed to get caught up with colorful language. It did not bother the redhead anymore since it seemed to be a part of Jayden's personality. She was not looking to change Jayden unless the girl had a rather serious bad habit.

"Come on, you two. It probably got away, which is fine anyway. I'm supposed to be hunting for unidentified snakes, not completely known lizards," Kim commented in an amused tone. She was smiling, trying to hold off on grinning because she knew that would only encourage them.

"She makes a point," Todd said to Jade. He was looking up at the child since he was lying on his stomach in the dirt while she was standing up a few feet away from him.

"I wanna see the unknown snakes!" Jayden practically cheered while making her way out of the plant. She actually made sure not to step on her brother while walking out of the flora. Once she was out, Todd made his way out of the plant too.

The rather dirty family moved on from where they were to continue their hunt. They did not seem to be focused on finding snakes, though. They were mostly talking, which they knew was scaring off most animals that might be near them, but they did not have to worry about that affecting their quest for snakes. They were going through the creatures that they knew things about or what they wanted to see and things like that.

Despite the fact that they were doing more talking than searching, they were still getting dirtier by the second. They were all climbing trees, trekking through mud or diving in mud in Jayden's case, and every now and then chasing some kind of creature. They never did spot a new species of snake, though. Jayden did find a number of animals that she wanted to take back home, but she knew that was not going to happen. The "animal room" at their home was empty; Shego made Kim release all of the cold-blooded critters before the trip. Shego wanted it to stay empty until they were settled back home, so there were not going to be any creatures coming back with them and she made that quite clear, which no amount of pouting could get her to reverse.

When the trio arrived at the place they were staying for the next two weeks, Shego's mouth practically hit the floor. Her eyes seemed wide enough to double as satellite dishes. She could not believe how filthy all three of them were. She was so incredulous that she could not even yell at them. She could only stare, hard.

"Wow, you weren't kidding about being a dirty little boy," Maddie commented, speaking to Todd. He could only laugh and shrug, mud sliding off of him because of the movement.

"Mommy, you won't believe what we did and what we saw!" Jayden shouted while charging over to Shego, who put her hand out because she knew that her daughter was about to tackle her.

"Hold on there, goblin. You leap on me and we're going to have a problem with you being a dust-bomb at the moment," Shego remarked quite seriously. The last thing that she wanted right now was for one of her family members to touch her.

Jayden rolled her olive green eyes. "Fine," she sighed. "But, can I tell ya?" she inquired while bouncing eagerly in front of her mother, all kinds of matter dropped from her because of her motion.

"You can tell me when you, your Mom, and Smiley get clean," Shego replied.

"Clean isn't fun," Jayden pointed out. Clean was boring.

"Yeah, clean isn't fun," Kim and Todd chimed in at the same time. They both also had the nerve to be wearing the same smile while speaking.

"You see what I'm working with here?" Shego quipped wearily, speaking to Rosa, who was laughing a bit in the corner.

The green-skinned woman ushered her filthy family into the back of the house, where there was a hose for her to rinse them off. She could not believe that she was hosing off not just her children, one who was sixteen for crying out loud, but also her spouse. It would be embarrassing if it was not so expected.

After hosing the disgusting trio off, Shego then forced them to go shower. There was a small bathroom in the house with a shower. They let Jayden go first, even though she really wanted to go last just to be dripping wet for no reason. When she was done, Todd let Kim go take a shower next. Todd was last and by the time he got out of the shower, dinner was done and waiting.

Through the meal, Kim explained to Shego that Gil was back in town, which the super-powered female immediately did not like. Kim quickly added that she had been assured he could not transform anymore. Shego looked rather skeptical on that, her mouth turned up to the right, but she did not say anything to it. She just figured that if he started acting out again, she would pound his head into the dirt, especially since their kids were around. She would not stand for Jayden and Todd being in danger; Kim felt the same way.

----(Next day)

"Hey, weird brother," Jayden said to Todd. They were sitting outside of the clinic, waiting for Kim to come out, so they could all go run amok in the jungle again. They were being held up because Kim had been requested to help examine a snake bite wound, which they all knew was going to be fine, so Jayden did not see why they needed her mother to look at the stupid injury in the first place.

"What's up?" Todd answered while holding in a yawn.

"What's that guy doing?" Jayden asked curiously while pointing over to a cluster of trees where she could see Gil sneaking off into.

"You wanna go see, don't you?" Todd inquired while catching sight of creepy older male.

"Hell to the yeah. Better than sitting around here," she pointed out.

"Let's get going, then," he easily yielded. Following a guy that might start trouble was definitely better than just standing around waiting for Kim to come back outside. He figured that he would be able to keep a good eye on his little sister, so nothing would go wrong.

The siblings trotted off. Todd jogged to allow Jayden to keep up with him, but he did not think to pick her up. They caught up to Gil, but remained out of sight and were so quiet that Shego would have beamed with pride over their stealth skills. They noted that he seemed to be going somewhere specific and they could only wonder where. They did stick close to him to see what he was doing. He ended up going to a pond and looking into the water. The siblings made sure to keep themselves hidden as they watched him; Todd hid behind a tree while Jayden had taken to hiding in the tree. She was a sneaky little thing, climbing the tree without making a sound.

"What the hell is he doing?" the little girl wondered quietly while crawling to the edge of a branch to try and get a better look at Gil.

Gil was peering deeply into the water, trying to see some of the fish or maybe any other animals that were in the pond. He then waded into the water. He stood there for a long time, puzzling the spying siblings. He then seemed to get frustrated, hollering at the sky and pulling himself out of the water. He stormed off and the siblings looked at each other.

"What the hell?" Jayden said with a bewildered look on her face.

"I don't know. Let's go see," Todd answered.

Jayden nodded and flipped out of the tree. They both trotted up to the pond and looked into the water. They saw a couple of fish in the muddy water, but they did not look particularly special. They spotted some frogs in the water too, but they did not appear special either. The siblings stared at each other.

"What do you think he was doing?" Jayden asked.

"I'm not totally sure, but I doubt it was any good. We should tell Kimmie when we get back," Todd replied.

"Tell her what? Nothing happened," the child pointed out, slightly disappointed. She was hoping to see Gil turn into the mutant thing that their mothers had spoke on.

Todd nodded in agreement. Nothing did happen, but part of him was saying that he should tell Kimmie or his She-she about Gil's strange behavior. Still, there was nothing much to report and he did not make it habit to speculate that something was going to happen, especially on such flimsy evidence. He did not want to work their mothers up either since the trip was supposed to be about having a good time.

"Well, let's go see if Pop's done," Todd remarked with a laugh. He referred to Kim as "Pop" on occasion now, sometimes to tease her and sometimes just because he felt that she was the closet thing that he had to a father, not counting Ron anyway.

"I hope she is. I wanna go dive into some more shrubs," Jayden declared with a grin.

Todd laughed as they started back toward the village. They found that Kim was waiting for them now, but she was not upset about it. They all grinned widely as they marched off toward the jungle, once again in search of unidentified species of snakes and identified species of anything as long as they could get dirty while searching. Shego had a fit when they came in a few hours later, especially when they all started giving her the same lop-sided grin.

----(New day)

Todd and Jayden were earlier raisers, regularly waking up before their mothers did by almost an hour. They woke up and went to sit outside, planning to just people-watch for a little while until someone got up and got some breakfast going. They were still in their sleepwear and out in their bare feet.

The redhead was wearing just a pair of basketball shorts. He figured that he might be able to get a tan if he showed enough skin for enough time. It did not seem to be working as he was still as pale as ever. He was, however, offering a pleasant show to any passing females, who just had to eye his statuesque eight-pack of abs, perfect biceps, and tantalizing chest. His hair was going in every direction, but that did not deter ladies from looking at his near-beautiful form.

Jayden was leaning against Todd, now playing with her rubix cube, which she was close to solving yet again. Her ebony hair was just as wild as her brother's; she tended to wait for one of her mothers to fix that when they woke up. She was dressed in Care Bear pajamas, which happened to be a shirt with violet-colored sleeves and a picture of Sweet Dreams Bear on the white part of the shirt. Her knee-length shorts were violet with the same Care Bear on the left leg.

"Hey, goblin, you see that?" Todd asked while nodding ahead of them into a cluster of trees.

Jayden turned her head to where her brother was directing her. She arched an eyebrow. "What the hell is that weirdo doing now?" she wondered aloud.

They were talking about Gil. They could just make him out in the distance. He looked upset, which was nothing new. Every time that they saw him, he did not seem too happy to be in what they considered to be a great place. He seemed slightly hunched over and straining to do something. His eyes seemed shady, like he was scheming or something. The siblings would not have dismissed him from their minds, but then he suddenly started turning green.

"Oh, we gotta check this out," Todd commented since something weird was happening.

"Hell yeah," Jayden agreed.

The siblings got up and made their way over to Gil, who was still changing, getting bulkier and turning the color of moss. As soon as the pair got to him, he turned around. They both stopped dead in their tracks and balked at the sight before them. Wow, he did look like a fish-frog thing, they thought.

"I'm glad to see you two," Gil commented with a wicked grin on his froggy face.

"I don't even wanna know why," Todd replied, knowing that the mutant could not want to see them for anything good.

Todd, thinking quick on his feet, grabbed his little sister and took off running, wanting to get her to safety. Jayden, of course, took exception to her brother's actions and began cursing him out. Todd did not pay her any mind; after all, she cursed him out if he changed the channel on the television, so it was pretty common. Gil laughed wickedly as the redhead fled and then fired his sticky phlegm at the pair. Todd looked back to see the projectile coming and easily dodged it. Gil sucked his teeth and gave chase to the pair.

Todd dodged several projectiles coming his way from the mutant amphibian. He would have continued running until he got to the house, but he noticed that Gil was shoving people out of his way rather roughly and powerfully. He possibly injured several people while trying to get to Todd, which filled the redhead with righteous indignation. He stopped running, which surprised Gil.

"Giving up already, bitch-boy?" Gil inquired. The people that were up in the village were fleeing the scene because of the mutant, many of them remembering the uproar he caused decade ago.

"Jade, get going," Todd ordered in a dead serious tone while putting his little sister down.

"But, Smiley, I can help," Jayden protested. She was just as capable as her brother in her mind. Sure, he was bigger than she was, but she could do just as much as him and she wanted to stay in case he needed her help.

"You can help by not being in my way," Todd stated while cracking his knuckles by flexing his open hands and then making tight fists.

"I can help," Jayden repeated with determination.

"Go!" Todd barked down at his little sister.

"I don't have time for this!" Gil declared and he spit his phlegm, at Jayden.

Todd pushed his little sister out of the way. He barely missed being hit by the projectile, but he saved Jayden completely. He then sprang up at a speed that was more than incredible for someone his size. He leaned in with a punch that Gil barely dodged and had only done that because his mutation made him quicker than he usually was. Todd was not deterred by one move and continued going at Gil to hopefully stop him.

The mutant was a bit worried; his brow was furrowed slightly because of that. He had gone through a lot of trouble to be able to get his ability to transform back and now it seemed like he was going to get beat by an upstart teenage punk before he had a chance to get revenge on Kim and Shego. Before he could think of someway to stop Todd, Jayden came out of nowhere, kicking him cleanly in the face. He fell back, but quickly countered what happened by spitting phlegm in Jayden's direction as she landed. Todd tossed his little sister out of the way and he was hit with the projectile.

"Damn it!" Todd hollered as the goo wrapped around his naked torso and pressed against his flesh. He found that he could not move his arms. "This is so fucking gross!" he complained. It felt like mud, but it was spit. Mutant spit.

"Smiley!" Jayden shouted as she landed. She slapped herself in the forehead as she realized that her brother just got hit for her. "Sorry, Smiles!" she sincerely apologized.

"It's okay," Todd honestly replied and he went at Gil anyway. He came in with graceful kicks that really did not seem natural for a guy his size, in Gil's opinion anyway.

The frog-man thought that he was going to be in trouble until Todd slowed down a bit. The redhead had to gather his balance, but as soon as he did that, Gil attacked. The mutant let loose some phlegm that attached to Todd's leg. The force knocked the teenager over and he was pinned to the ground by the sticky substance.

"Now for you!" Gil said while turning his attention to Jayden.

"Leave her the fuck alone!" Todd ordered in a roar like an outraged tiger while trying to rip himself off of the ground, but he was stuck firm. He growled in anger.

"Bring it on, frog-face," Jayden stated with confidence that she could only get from her mothers and then had the nerve to put her little fists up. Gil could not help laughing.

"You're going down, squeeb," the mutant declared.

Gil spit his vile projectile at Jayden, which she easily dodged. She moved gracefully and skillfully, especially for a child her age. The frog-man did not let that bother him and continued to fire at her. Jayden moved around in circles and he followed, failing to notice what she was doing, namely getting him closer to her brother. Todd tripped Gil with his free leg and as the mutant hit the ground, Jayden came in with some furious kicks to the area Shego instructed her to go for if a guy was threatening her.

Gil screamed in perfect agony as Jayden wailed on his junk. He leaned up and did not aim, just started spitting. He nailed Jayden in the chest, knocking her back from the force of the phlegm. She fell to the ground and was pinned. She began struggling, trying to get free while Gil slowly stood up, forgetting that he was next to Todd thanks to the horrible agony that he was currently in. Todd took the mutant's legs out from underneath him again. Gil wisely rolled away before trying to get up again.

"Now, to take you brats out," the amphibious villain growled while marching toward Jayden. He ignored the fact that he had tears in his eyes thanks to her.

"Leave her alone, you bastard! She's only a little girl!" Todd hollered while struggling against the goo trapping him. Oh, when he got out, he was going to rip that bastard's head off his shoulders if he hurt Jayden!

"She's a little bitch," Gil snarled while standing over Jayden. "You look like both of them, you know? I hate you for that and getting rid of you is just going to be the start of what I do to them," he stated.

Jayden gulped, getting rid of her? She did not like the sound of that. Todd continued to bark at the mutant, promising some very painful things before killing Gil if he touched Jayden. The little girl closed her eyes in fright as Gil raised a strong fist over her head and she did the only thing that she could do at the moment.

"MOM! MOMMY!" Jayden hollered at the top of her lungs in sheer panic and distress. Gil could not help laughing.

"No one's going to save you now, kid. And now, those bitches will know my pain of having a dream die," Gil proclaimed.

"She's not a dream! She's just a nine-year-old kid, so leave her alone, you fucking coward!" Todd commanded in a furious bellow. He was red all over due to the fury that was burning through him like magma in his veins because of that fish bastard threatening his baby sister. He was now trying to reach Gil with his one free leg, but did not make it. He wished he was taller, or at least had longer legs.

"Shut up! You're next! They took everything from me, so I'll just take everything from them!" Gil snarled. He turned his attention back to Jayden, who was now shaking and crying. She had never been in a situation where she was trapped and actually staring her death in the face through no fault of her own.

Gil laughed wickedly and was about to clobber little Jayden to death, but was smacked with just about the most powerful force he had ever felt. In fact, he was pretty sure that being hit by a speeding truck would have been less painful. He groaned in agony and shock as the hit knocked him back several yards. He landed on his back and looked up to see what hit him.

"Just what the FUCK do you think you're doing to my kids?" Shego demanded to know with a growl that would have frightened a pride of lions. Her top lip was curled in a livid scowl. Her hands were flared as much as possible, making it look like her hands were in the middle of two emerald green infernos. She would fry that frog bastard if he hurt her children!

"You!" Gil roared as he caught sight of her.

"Yeah, me," Shego replied and then she glanced down at Jayden, who she could see was crying. Shego's head snapped back to Gil and she looked just about as angry as a person could ever look; her eyes were screaming bloody murder for the mutant creature. "You made my daughter cry?" she said as a vein bulged from her neck because of her rage.

"So what if I did?" he replied with more confidence and satisfaction than anyone would have recommended.

The outraged mother hollered and most intelligent, and probably idiotic, people would have just begged her for mercy right that moment. Gil did not. She raised a clawed hand and dashed at him with the sole intent of tearing him in twain with her bare hands. He vanished before she could reach him and she slashed viciously through air.

"Where the fuck are you, you smelly bastard!" Shego screamed, fuming because she had not slaughtered him with one blow. She turned rapidly trying to catch sight of him, but as long as he was quiet, she could not spot him. She hated it when assholes learned from past defeats.

And then the next thing Shego knew, she was on the ground. She grunted as she hit by a powerful force in the ribs. She knew that Gil was kicking her and she lashed out at him, but she got air again. She growled as she climbed to her feet, only to be hit again. She was being knocked around and came dangerously close to falling on Jayden at one point, but she caught her balance before she harmed her darling daughter.

"Shego, I got him. Get the kids free!" Kim ordered as she dashed into the fray and jumped into a kick move. Surprisingly, the blow landed cleanly and Gil could be heard grunting before he hit the ground.

"How the hell did you do that?" Gil demanded to know from his spot on the ground while Shego went to cut the kids free.

"You can't hide from the Kimmunicator," Kim replied while waving the device at him. She was getting a clear image of him in infrared. Hey, he was a frog-fish thing in a humid jungle, so he was giving off some pretty clear heat signs, especially in an empty part of the village.

"I'll still take you down!" he declared, spitting his phlegm at her.

Kim easily dodged the projectile and went at him with a vengeance. Hurt her kids? Make her daughter cry? Oh, the bastard was going down hard. She wailed on him with every combination that came to mind until she hit him with such ferocity that it knocked him out of his camouflage mode. He fell into the dirt with a groan as he became visible; blood could be seen pouring down his face.

"Pumpkin, move!" Shego ordered.

Kim sidestepped immediately and Shego let loose a thick stream of plasma. Gil barely had time to comprehend what was coming and could only stare in disbelief as he was practically tackled by her immense power. He let out a small gasp in shock as it impacted him and he felt like his body was on fire, causing him to cry out in an ear-splitting screech. He passed out from the absolute anguish that he was in seconds after the agony began.

"Shego, what did you do to him?" Kim asked curiously because in all of her years with the pale woman, she had never seen anyone in such pain from one of Shego's plasma blast.

"Ever set a frog on fire when you were a kid?" Shego countered while staring at unconscious mutant, satisfied with her work. Jayden was standing next to her, leaning against her leg and close to hugging the limb.

"Of course not," Kim answered the obvious.

"Me neither, so I just figured I'd get it out of the way," Shego remarked with a devilish smirk.

"Did you…?" Kim asked curiously. She wanted to know if her wife had just killed Gil.

"Course not, but I bet he won't be fucking around with our kids anymore," the older woman answered soundly. She would not hesitate to kill him if that ignorant bastard did come near their son or daughter again. Kim would more than likely back her up on that.

Doctor Lurkin once again had to come to take his stepson away. He was just as confused as Kim was once she realized that Gil had transformed again when he was not supposed to be able to do so. Gil did not spill how he did it, but Todd and Jayden did offer up that they saw him at a pond in the jungle. Then Todd remembered Maddie telling him that they still had some weird animals roaming around because of Gil.

"So, the water probably did something to him," Kim concluded after hearing about Gil's little trip to the pond.

"But, we didn't see weird animals in the pond or near it," Jayden pointed out with a confused face.

"The water probably reacted to something still in Gil's system," Kim offered and her daughter shrugged since it was possible.

"Well, we'll find out after we make sure he's okay," Doctor Lurkin said. Gil was conscious, but he could not move anything on his body below his chin. He was wisely going quietly because if he let any stupid thing out his mouth, Shego was going to be on him worse than that burnt skin. She was still quite pissed that he had the nerve to go after their children, especially since she now knew that he planned to kill them.

"Listen carefully," Shego said to the blonde scientist in a rather menacing tone. "You keep him wherever the fuck you've been keeping him because if I see this stupid bitch again, I am going to set his punk ass on fire for real. Nobody threatens my fucking kids," she stated soundly and then she turned her attention to Gil. "You hear me, fish-boy? I'll fucking fry you like the flounder you are," she snarled in anger.

Gil could tell just from the look in Shego's eyes that she was serious. But, the pain that he was feeling at the moment let him know that she could certainly do what she claimed. He was angry, of course, that she and Kim had embarrassed him once again, but at the moment, he was not looking to tempt her anymore. He already knew that he was lucky to be coming away from that encounter alive.

The family was happy to see Gil go and they were able to enjoy the rest of their trip. Doctor Lurkin did call Kim in the middle of the trip to let her know that there were some chemicals in the water that had reacted with chemicals that were still in Gil's body and that was how he ended up transforming. He also informed her that people were going to go clean the pond and Gil was disinfected once again. He then apologized for the all of the trouble that Gil had caused, which Kim accepted, even though she did not care about an apology from him. She just wanted Gil to stay away from her family, so her wife did not have to murder him. Doctor Lurkin did tell her that Gil did not seem interested in bothering them again. She was not sure if she believed him.

Still, Kim and the kids went wild once Gil was gone. Shego was back to not believing how dirty her family could get. They did not bring Gil up, although at night it was clear that what happened was on their minds. They were all camped out in the living room when they had to sleep. Jayden now slept between her mothers when at the start of the trip she had been very independent and wanted to sleep a few feet from them. Kim and Shego stared down at their daughter when she fell asleep, sometimes caressing her face or pushing her hair back. They also checked on Todd, who slept on the opposite side of the room.

Kim and Shego were not the only ones checking on people. Todd started waking up in the middle of the night and would look over at the most important ladies in his life to make sure that they were all right. He was a bit disappointed at his failure to protect his little sister and silently vowed to become stronger. Never again would he need his She-she and Kimmie to save him again or save Jayden if he was around.

One amazing thing that Todd and Jayden took from their experience was just how awesome their parents were. They had never seen Shego and Kim in action like that before and they supposed that they took their parents' fighting prowess for granted. They never seemed to realize what kind of fighters their mothers were, but now they knew. They were the kids of not just two very intelligent women, but also extremely powerful beings. They wanted to live up to such legacies. They wanted to be just as extraordinary as their parents.

--------------

Next time: Todd and Jayden spend spring break with the doctors Possible.


	36. Reason Thirtysix: Surgical precision

I don't own these characters. I don't own the original premise behind this saga. I don't own the Care Bears.

Reason Thirty-six: Surgical precision

_When the kids are away, the parents will play._

Shego and Kim were sitting on the sofa. The redhead was on Shego's lap with her legs around her spouse's waist and they were engaged in a kiss that could only be a prelude to more active goings on that could actually take place in the living room since they were alone. The pale woman's hand snaked up from around Kim's waist to her torso, stroking her through a ratty old tee-shirt that she was wearing. The slim hero moaned into her wife's mouth and then they pulled away for miserable air.

"God, Pumpkin, I need to get you naked right now," Shego said in a desperate hiss as Kim attacked her neck with vigor.

The hero smiled against her wife's flesh. "You know I'm always happy to oblige," she replied, her breath on Shego's neck caused the green-skinned woman to shiver in anticipation. Kim did not help matters by grinding against her mate, causing her to hiss again.

"Bad girl," Shego scolded her spouse in a low tone.

"Just the way you like me," the redhead remarked with a wicked smile.

The couple was getting busy on the couch because they did not have to worry about their kids coming in and seeing them. Jayden and Todd had been shipped off to Middleton as their grandparents had happily offered to take the pair for spring break, which was something the doctors Possible tended to do. It gave Kim and Shego a week to be alone, which they genuinely appreciated and were looking to make the most of it, which was why they were about to get freaky in the living room.

The only thing that interrupted their play was the phone ringing. Shego cursed under her breath while reaching for the phone to see who was calling. She groaned when she saw the number was the Possible house, meaning it was probably one of the kids. She did not even want to think of them at the moment, but she had to answer to make sure that there was nothing wrong.

"Yo," Shego answered while Kim was busy trying to get her out of her shirt, but she was resisting since one of the kids might be on the phone.

"Hey, She-she," Todd replied.

"What's up, Smiles?" Shego inquired. The name of their son did make Kim stop for a moment. It would seem that she found it difficult to do anything with being reminded that the kids existed too.

"I just wanted to let you know that we got to the house with no problem," Todd reported proudly.

"He almost hit a duck!" Jayden shouted into the phone, telling on her brother just because it was entertaining most of the time that she did it. Todd had driven to Middleton for the first time on his own; usually, their grandparents came to pick them up. He was quite pleased that their parents trusted him enough to make the trip by himself with his sister riding shotgun for the whole trip.

"Don't listen to her, She-she. You know how Jade likes making up stuff and everything," the teenager commented in a bit of a nervous tone. Yes, he had almost hit a duck on the way and worse yet was that he did not see it because he was busy arguing with Jayden over what music they were going to listen to. He had allowed himself to be distracted by nine-year-old; how immature, he thought.

"I'm not!" Jayden objected to the fact that hr big brother was making it seem like she was lying. She was no liar, especially not when speaking with their mothers.

"Anyway, we made it. Grandpa and Mee-ma say hi. We'll talk to you later," Todd bid their mother farewell.

"Okay, don't drive your grandparents too crazy. I don't want them to ship you back to us," Shego remarked with humor in her voice.

"What makes you think I'd drive right back? I got the car. I'm a crazy man!" Todd joked, laughing as he spoke.

"Like you're going to go anywhere tugging your nine-year-old sister along, especially when you know she'll just tell on you when you get home anyway," Shego riposted smugly. Jayden was a good little alarm system for her, informing her almost immediately if Todd or Kim did anything out of line. The great thing was that she blew the whistle on them, even if she was involved and had a good time.

Todd did not have a rebuttal for that one, so he hung up the phone. Shego turned the phone off and turned her attention back to her wife. Kim wasted no time going back to doing what she was doing; apparently, she could easily wipe the phone call from her mind. Kim's actions got Shego back into things. They were back on task within seconds and remained that way for quite a while.

"A week of this…you might actually kill me," Shego quipped after a near hour of delicious coupling. She and Kim were now lying nude on the living room floor. The petite scientist was curled up against her side.

"You'll go with a smile on your face," Kim commented with a wide, rather proud grin on her face. "Stop acting like such an old woman," she added to tease the elder female and she kissed her pale spouse's cheek.

"Not all us can be brats our whole lives," Shego riposted.

Kim did not seem to like that much and showed as much by leaning in to kiss Shego on the mouth, thus shutting her up. It would seem that she was going to kill her partner with pleasure. Shego was pretty sure that she would go with a smile and she was not going to complain as Kim crawled on top of her.

--------------

Jayden and Todd were getting settled into their grandparents' house. As usual, Jayden took her Mom's old room. Todd took his uncles' old room. They had both already discovered all of the fun things in the room from past visits. They now found it necessary to start leaving little things of their own in the rooms for when their cousins started staying in the areas.

Yes, they had cousins. Both Jim and Tim had gotten married and had kids. Jim had a little girl recently while Tim had had a son almost two years ago. Jayden and Todd wished that they had had cousins sooner, but they were happy with the arrival of the babies.

Shego's brothers had failed to produce offspring, much to Isabel's disappointment, so Todd and Jayden did not have cousins on that side of their family. Hego did not seem interested in settling down; Shego suspected that he could not find a woman looking to put with a man that worked at a taco fast food place when he was in his forties. Mego did not seem interested in having a family of his own, having Jayden for his niece really seemed to be enough for him; stories were now starting to sprout up about his sexuality. The Wegos just could not seem to keep steady girlfriends, probably because they still had the crazy idea in their heads that they were a single guy; ladies just did not seem to think that was cute as far as everyone could tell. Isabel was hoping that her sons got their acts together because she did want more grandchildren, although she sort of had more than she could deal with already.

Once the siblings got settled in, they went to go see what kind of trouble their grandparents had for them to get into. They were never short of activities when they were with the doctors Possible. Ann often took them to the hospital, which she still worked at, even though she was getting on in years. James took them to the space center a great deal of the time too. Jayden enjoyed things more than Todd did, but Todd did have a good time.

Jayden had more fun than her brother because she was just excitable for one. But, there was also the fact that she learned very easily through observation, so she was always taking in new information and storing it away for some future date, in which she would probably use it to get in trouble Todd often thought. Sometimes, Jayden did not even seem to notice that she was taking in information, which her brother only thought was worse. All she needed was to realize that she knew how to do something because he knew that realization would not come at a good time.

"So, Mee-ma, how about we all go see some open surgery?" Todd suggested with a grin as he and Jayden joined their grandparents in the living room.

Ann laughed a bit. "How about we hold off on that for a day?" she replied with a teasing smile.

"Aw, man!" Jayden groaned in disappointment while cuddling up next to her grandmother on the sofa. For a girl that liked acting so grown around everyone, she seemed to turn into something close to a baby when she got close to Ann. The neurosurgeon did not care; she loved it when Jayden snuggled up to her.

"Don't worry, sweetie. I'll take you to the hospital soon enough and we'll watch some surgeries," Ann assured the child while wrapping her arm around the little girl and smiling softly. Jayden signed contently, just enjoying being near her Mee-ma.

Ann, of course, adored how eager Jayden was when it came to medicine, but she never considered the idea that Jayden might become a medical doctor as she had done for Kim. She knew what Jayden was going to be already, even if the girl was interested in the medical field. Jayden just seemed destined to be a herpetologist. With luck, she would make a mark in the field just as big as Kim's, although Kim was making herself a tough act to follow.

"Well, what about to some rockets, Grandpa?" Todd asked while sitting across from their grandparents.

"In a couple of days, Smiley. We've got a Rocket Boosters meeting," James declared with a smile.

"Cool," Todd said sincerely with a nod. Unlike his Kimmie, he never got the feeling that he was getting too old to go to the Rocket Boosters, but it might have had something to do with the fact that James did not treat Todd like a child as he used to do with Kim. James saw his grandson as a grown man more or less now.

"Yay, I get to launch a satellite!" Jayden proclaimed with a joyous grin.

"He didn't say that," Todd pointed out, looking to burst his little sister's bubble.

"Nobody can stop me, though," Jayden countered with quite the serious little look on her face. Her eyes seemed to be calling her brother a dumbass for even implying that someone could stop her from succeeding in her goal.

James and Ann laughed, even though they knew that Jayden was totally serious. The girl made it a point to launch something when she went to the space center, whether or not people wanted her to. It was brought on through her capacity of learning from observation and that was why Todd knew the trait got her into trouble more often than not.

"How about I start dinner and then we watch a movie?" Ann suggested to start the visit off slowly. She thought it was amusing how Jayden and Todd always wanted to get into everything the moment that they arrived.

"Brain loaf?" the siblings asked with hope shining in their eyes in regards to dinner.

"Of course," their grandmother answered, which caused the pair to grin. It was uncanny how much they looked like Kim, she thought.

Ann was glad that her grandkids appreciated the "brain loaf." Thanks to them, she had been trying to come up with other food designed to look like body parts. Their favorites, after the brain loaf anyway, were cupcakes that she made that looked like hearts. One time, Todd pretended that he coughed up his own heart, but it was a cupcake. Jayden had died of laughter for about two hours straight.

As zany as the siblings could be, Ann and James enjoyed having them around, which was why they took the pair for the spring break. They tried to take the kids over other breaks too, but sometimes they had to schedule long in advance because Kim could come up with adventures for her and her kids at the drop of a dime. There was also the fact that they had to beat Isabel to snatching up the pair because she liked having them around just as much as the doctors Possible.

The family had dinner together; Todd and Jayden thoroughly enjoyed the brain loaf. They talked and beamed from being around each other as always. Then they watched a movie, which they enjoyed, even though Jayden felt the need to yell at the scene. They also played a trivia game together. They all had a good time, which they knew they would because they always did.

----(New day)

Jayden was pressed against the glass in the observation room in the hospital. Her breath was fogging up the glass slightly; she was making sure not to breathe too hard. Her eyes were wide, taking everything in, while her nose was being smashed uncomfortably on the surface. She did not think anything of the discomfort. She was looking down into a surgery and that had her full attention.

Ann brought Jayden and Todd to the hospital upon request by the kids. They both seemed rather fascinated by medicine and Ann really wished that they would follow in her footsteps, but she knew that was not going to happen. Well, she had other grandchildren that she might be able to talk into becoming medical doctors, she reminded herself.

"So, Smiley, ready for college?" Ann asked Todd, who was sitting next to his grandmother.

"As ready as I'll ever be," he answered, dividing his attention between his grandmother and the surgery going on down below. From the look on his face, one might assume he was watching a suspense movie. Really, if he was not so certain that he wanted to be a paleontologist, he probably would give medical school a try.

"Are you going to be playing football for the school too?" she asked curiously.

"Yeah, the coach talked to me and he says he could use someone like me on the team. I still need to try out and everything, but I'll probably be playing there. I think it'll be fun to keep playing football in college."

"Well, what are you going to do if professional teams start recruiting you?" she inquired, being very sincere. It seemed possible for that to happen if he was going to continue playing on the collegiate level and Go University was popular as far as sports went.

It never seemed to cross the teen's mind that he could possibly play professional football, which might explain why he laughed at the question. The idea seemed very ludicrous him, even though his grandfather Jason was trying to encourage such a dream. He played football for fun, though. He wanted his career to be in paleontology.

"You think my She-she is gonna let me play pro ball after paying for four years of college? She'll beat me up to use my degree," Todd remarked, still smiling up a storm.

Ann laughed a bit. She was not so sure about that, but knowing Shego, she would demand that her son use his head to make his way in the world and not football. Todd could not even imagine telling his Kimmie that he wanted to be a paleontologist, so it was not even on his mind to tell his She-she that he was not going to use his degree at all. Besides, he believed that he was a mediocre football player at best and highly doubted that he would get a chance to play professionally. He counted himself lucky to just be able to play in college; others probably would have disagreed with him, including his She-she and Kimmie. He was good at football, just like everything else he got into, but he failed to notice it most of the time.

Ann was going to say something else to Todd, but Jayden suddenly got her attention. The girl seemed to be well on her way with merging with the glass dividing their deck from the operating room. Ann decided to pull the child back just a little bit, if only to get her off of the barrier. Jayden remained standing up, but she was no longer pressed into the glass. With that done, Ann turned her attention back to her grandson.

"Hey, Mee-ma," Todd said in a low, close-to-worried tone. His emerald eyes squinted for a moment, as if he was pondering something.

"Yes?" Ann replied, intrigued by his voice. She wondered why he sounded that way and looked as he did. She hoped that everything was all right with him.

"How'd you know you wanted to be neurosurgeon?" the young man inquired curiously.

"Hmm…" Ann had to think on that for a while. It seemed like such a long time ago. "Well, I always wanted to be a doctor, I know that. I think as I got older, I just got more and more fascinated with the human nervous system. I mean, it's a complex thing, the human body I mean and within that complex system, there's another complex system, which is the nervous system. The brain is just…interesting to me," she answered. She was not sure what else to say.

Todd nodded. "Were you following in the footsteps of one of your parents?" he asked. He did not know anything his Mee-ma's family, mostly because Ann's parents had not taken Kim's marriage to a woman well and had basically cut her off.

"No, my parents were both in business," she answered.

"Did they want you to follow in their footsteps?"

"Yes."

"So, were they disappointed when you became a doctor instead?" he asked.

"I don't think any parents are disappointed when their child becomes a doctor," she answered with an amused smile. Her parents were very proud of her when she became a doctor and they used to catch wicked attitudes when one of their friends or just some acquaintance got things wrong and referred to Ann as a nurse. Calling her a nurse in front of her parents, it was like calling down thunder.

Todd nodded to that information, taking it in. His eyes seemed intense, which they usually were, but there was something different to them now. They usually seemed powerful like his mothers eyes, but right now they seemed to just show that he was in deep thought.

Ann looked at her teenage grandson curiously. He was going to college in the fall, Go University of all places. He seemed nervous about it in her opinion because of all of his questions. She thought that was odd because she had never known Todd to be anxious about going some place; well, not since he got older anyway. She knew that he had been a bit nervous as a child, but now he was a very outgoing and courageous young man, so she wondered what was wrong with him.

"Smiles, you know you'll do fine in college, right?" Ann said in a reassuring tone.

Todd grinned. "I know, Mee-me. It'll be fun," he stated confidently. He was not nervous about going to college.

"It will be. You'll have a great time."

The teen nodded. He was going to ask his grandmother something, but decided against it. He would wait and bring it up to his grandfather. Besides, the operation was over, so they were going to have to get moving anyway.

Jayden practically bounced out of the observation room; she was skipping of all things. She wanted to go talk to the surgeon that they just watched in action and she had been to the hospital enough to know where to find him. She was delayed by a number of nurses, who were familiar with her and Todd. The nurses thought they both were too adorable; Jayden because she was a little girl that understood medical practices as well as they did and Todd just because he seemed a bit shy when he spoke to the women around the hospital. Todd gave off the shy vibe because of his voice, which was very soft and really did not fit a guy his size and build. He also had the strange habit of looking away from women when he spoke to them; men, he would easily look dead in the face.

Jayden was happy to talk with everyone about the surgery that she just watched and the nurses loved to get her going anyway. They loved her energy and enthusiasm. Todd thought it was funny because they only knew one side of Jayden, which was the cute side. He doubted that they would believe their eyes if they saw her when she was at school or with her friends.

The surgeon that Jayden wanted to see eventually found her. He had seen her in the observation deck peering down on him like some intrigued bird, so he knew that she would be looking for him. As soon as she spotted him, she began singing his praises while going into all kind of technical terms to describe what she saw. Todd did not jump in, which was odd because he was typically right with his little sister, talking about the operation. The hospital could not believe when Ann told the staff that her grandchildren were not going to be doctors, no matter how great they thought the field was. Ann was just in awe of the pair; Kim and Shego were doing a fine job in raising those two as far as she was concerned.

----(New day)

Jayden loved going to the space center with her grandfather, just as much as she loved going to the hospital with her grandmother. She just did not like that her grandfather wanted her to wear the bland shirt with the rocket on it. She did not like the color and she did not like that she was wearing a shirt that did not have a Care Bear on it. She bore the annoyance because she could not tell her grandfather "no." She just loved him too much to say something that she thought would hurt his feelings.

Todd did not mind the shirt that his grandfather insisted he wear when they went to the space center, but he wished that there was a larger size. Every time he went to a Rocket Boosters meeting, he needed a new shirt. The last meeting that he attended, he had to leave early because he accidentally flexed in the thing and the shirt tore open in several areas. Jayden had followed him when he left, laughing behind him until they got back to the house.

At the moment, the redhead was starting to consider that he might have that problem again. The shirt just did not stretch as much as it needed to, as far as his torso was concerned anyway. Next time he came, he was going to request a Rocket Boosters' jersey or something, something where he was not going to rip out of the sleeves if he curled his arm or where he would not tear the shoulders if he reached down to pick something up.

The Rocket Boosters meeting went as usual and then they were taken on a tour to observe what the space center was working on. Jayden was mesmerized by a group of engineers working on a rocket. Upon closer inspection, she realized that she was familiar with them and so, she ran over for a closer look.

The engineers were of mixed opinions when they saw Jayden. They loved and hated her enthusiasm, as it was that enthusiasm that led her to launching things without permission. Since she was only looking over their shoulders and not making a pest of herself, they did not say anything, but then the other kids in the Rocket Boosters started to do the same. So, the engineers had to shoo them all back, including Jayden, which she did not particularly like. The slight frown that she left with should have acted as a warning to them that they probably were going to regret driving her away.

Jayden wandered off, which was something that she generally did when around her grandfather. He was wrapped up in explaining things to the other kids and Todd was assisting in that. She figured that she would be back before they knew that she was gone. She just wanted to see what everyone else was working on. Todd and James did not notice Jayden was gone, even when the kids stopped for snacks. They did not notice because Todd kept his grandfather's attention.

"Grandpa, what if I told you I don't wanna be a herpetologist?" Todd inquired curiously.

"Do you want to be a rocket scientist?" James asked with hope in his voice; the emotion shined in his eyes too. The twins had gone into robotics instead of rocket science, so he was still looking for someone to follow in his footsteps.

Todd looked down a bit, not enjoying that he was going to have to burst his grandfather's bubble. "No, I don't wanna be a rocket scientist," he answered in a bit of a mumble.

"No? Then what would you do if you didn't go into herpetology? I mean, you're just as into cold-blooded animals as Kim. I'm sure she can't wait when you come to school and she can see you in action."

Todd shifted uncomfortably. "Grandpa…I wanna be a paleontologist," he informed the scientist.

"Paleontologist? They don't work with reptiles," James told his grandson, which caused Todd to laugh a bit.

"I know, Grandpa. I don't want to work with reptiles."

James looked absolutely shocked by the news. He would probably look less stunned if it was proven that the world was actually flat. Yes, he had long ago known that Todd was interested in prehistoric life, but he never thought that Todd would decide to study such a thing rather than becoming a herpetologist. His collection of amphibians and reptiles rivaled Kim's in size, even though it did not rival her collection in exoticness. He always seemed as enthused about the subject as Kim did, to the point where it annoyed the hell out of Shego. James could not imagine Todd not being a herpetologist.

"Does Kimmie know about this decision?" James inquired.

"I haven't been able to tell her. You think she'll be mad at me?" Todd inquired, looking down as if he was ashamed of himself.

It was James' turn to laugh. Kim mad at Todd? He had never seen it and he doubted that such a thing would happen just because the teen wanted to a paleontologist instead of a herpetologist. He was certain that Kim would just be proud that he already knew what he wanted to do in life and that he had a passion for the subject.

"You're not kidding, are you, Smiles?" James asked when he noted that his grandson did not laugh with him.

"I'm serious. I don't want to disappoint her," Todd answered.

"She'll be fine with it. Just talk with her. I'm sure she'll be happy with your decision," the rocket scientist tried to assure the teen, placing his hand on Todd's massive shoulder as he spoke.

The redhead's eyebrows furrowed. "You think?" He wondered if things really could be so simple.

"I'm positive."

Todd was going to say something else, but an alarm started sounding. He and James looked around with puzzled expressions. They wondered what was going on and then they looked at each other.

"Jade," they deadpanned. What were they supposed to do with that girl?

"Jade!" over a dozen people hollered as they realized that there was an unscheduled launch going on.

----(New day)

Todd and Jayden had a good week with their grandparents, although Jayden did cause some trouble at the space center with the unauthorized launching of a satellite. Despite Jayden's antics, the siblings were still welcomed at the space center, although Todd was scolded about not keeping a better eye on his little sister by the staff there. Todd did take responsibility for his little sister's actions, even though everyone was well aware that she knew better.

The farewell between the grandparents and grandkids were long and heartfelt. In fact, Todd and Jayden were supposed to leave in the morning, but they were not on the road until the afternoon. The ride home was much like the ride to their grandparents' house with them arguing over the radio.

"Stop touching it," Todd ordered the girl while thumping her hand away from the buttons on the dash with his middle finger.

"This song sucks," Jayden argued while taking the hard thumps like nothing and continuing to reach for the presets. She started hitting his hand away when the hits annoyed her.

"I like this song and I'm driving," Todd countered while trying to avoid her hits and going into flick her some more.

"So the hell what? I hate this song and I'm in the car same as you," she stated. The ride was pretty much like that on a continuous loop.

They entered the house in their usual loud fashion, which Shego and Kim were thankful for because it was like a warning for them. The parents rushed into some house clothes that they had waiting for when the kids came back. They were out of their bedroom by the time the kids hit the stairs.

"Hey, Mom, Mommy!" Jayden grinned when she caught sight of her parents and charged up the stairs to meet her mothers.

"Hey, mini-monster," Kim replied, grinning herself. Jayden pretty much tackled both women to the ground and hugged them.

"This is so your daughter," Shego groaned when she hit the floor.

Kim only laughed. Jayden then went into telling them about the great time that she had staying with her grandparents, which they expected. Todd waited until she was done before he came in for his hug and to convey how much he loved staying over at the Possible home. Their parents expected as much and listened intently to both of the kids as they spoke.

--------------

Kim was pacing in the living room with a worried and concerned look on her face. Shego just watched her go with an eyebrow arched in curiosity. Jayden had been put to bed after she had fallen asleep against Shego when they were all watching a movie.

"Pumpkin, what's wrong?" Shego finally asked.

"Smiley wants to talk to me later," Kim answered without ceasing her movements. She did not even look at her spouse as she spoke.

"So?"

"Alone," Kim added, halting in her tracks and spinning to look at the older woman. The hero's eyes showed terror, which explained why her heart felt like it was in her throat and beating three times faster than it should.

Shego was now interested. "Alone?" she echoed as if she did not understand what that meant. "Now, now, what has baby boy gotten himself into?" she wondered aloud while folding her arms across her chest.

"What indeed," the redhead replied nervously while rubbing her hands together to prevent them from shaking. Todd never requested to speak to one of them in private.

Shego rubbed her chin. She hoped to heaven that it was nothing serious, but Kim's demeanor was not helping her believe that. She tried to assure herself that Todd was their kid with common sense. He was their well-behaved child, to a degree anyway. He would never do anything truly stupid. What could he have gotten himself into that he only wanted to tell Kim?

When Todd came into the living room, he had so kindly volunteered to do the dishes, which was something that he did every so often, Shego left the room without a word. She knew that Kim would fill her in what was going on, especially if it was serious. The two redheads faced each other.

"So, kiddo, what do you want to talk about?" Kim asked curiously, trying her best not to sound as nervous as she was. She was not doing the best job, but she did not sound half as nervous as she was.

"Um…Kimmie…I wanna talk about college," Todd replied, looking away a bit because of his anxiety. He was holding his hands behind his back to keep her from seeing them tremble.

Kim wanted to sigh in relief that it did not sound serious. Unless, of course, Todd informed her that he did not want to go to college. Then, she was going to promptly faint and leave it all to Shego, who would more than likely burn the house down because of anger.

"Um…what about college?" Kim asked with more confidence in her voice than before.

"I wanna…I wanna…I don't wanna be a herpetologist," he informed her, speaking quickly to get it out in the open.

Kim did sigh in relief that time, her shoulders dropping into a relaxed state as she exhaled. Wow, he just did not want to be herpetologist. Okay, it was not something serious. Her heart rate calmed down and she finally felt comfortable about everything.

"That's it?" she inquired in a light tone to let him know that it was not a big deal.

"Yeah. You're not mad, are you?" he countered, looking at her with his head bowed.

"Of course not!" she answered vehemently to set him at ease and she walked over to embrace her son. "I'm glad it wasn't something serious! You can be whatever you want to be, Smiles. I just want you to be happy," she added.

"So, you're totally okay with me being a paleontologist?" he asked just to be sure, as if he could not believe it. It was so easy, after all.

"Of course, boog. I just want you to be happy. What, you thought I'd pressure you into being a herpetologist just because I'm one?" Kim asked incredulously, motioning to herself with her hands.

"Well, I did think you'd be disappointed in my decision," he admitted with a slight shrug.

"It's your life, Smiley. I'm only going to butt in when I think you're going to hurt yourself and I don't think this is going to hurt you. I know how much you love past forms of life anyway. I hope you make a big splash in the field," she replied sincerely.

"Thank you so much, Kimmie."

"Don't thank me, Smiles. It's your life."

Todd could not help smiling; apparently, he had been worried over nothing. He should have known, but he still felt like he would be letting Kim down by not being a herpetologist. He needed to confirm that he was not disappointing her and now that he knew she was not disappointed in him, it felt like a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders.

--------------

"So, what did the booger want to talk about?" Shego asked curiously as she and Kim settled down to go to bed. It was probably going to be the first time that week that they were going to be in bed and steamy, freaky sex was not going to happen.

"He just wanted to tell me that he's not going to be a herpetologist when he grows up," Kim answered as she made herself comfortable against Shego.

"That's it? I thought he was going to have something juicy," the pale woman remarked, even though she was glad that it was something minor. She was starting to get nervous, but now she knew that there was no need for the anxious feeling.

"Please, you know you didn't want it to be juicy," Kim called her love's bluff.

"Damn right I didn't. I thought our sane kid was going to prove that he's out of the little mind he has too," Shego commented while putting an arm around her mate.

"No, he was just nervous about telling me that he doesn't want to do herpetology. He didn't get a girl pregnant or anything like that," Kim said, as if she knew that Shego had jumped to that conclusion.

"He better not get a girl pregnant. Not after I saved all this damn money to send his crazy ass to college."

Kim just laughed. They lay silent and still for a moment, letting the subject fade into the night since it was over and done with, and then Kim leaned over. She started caressing Shego's sides and she pushed herself up to kiss Shego on the mouth.

"The kids…" Shego pointed out lamely when Kim pulled away for air. She had a bit of a fear of Jayden walking in on them more than anything else since Todd was not going to bother them once he went to bed. Besides, he would knock if he came to the door while Jayden would just burst in.

"Door's locked, love. So, you're mine," Kim stated with a demonic smirk.

Shego grabbed Kim as she was leaning in and gave the redhead her own devilish smirk. "I don't think so. I'm still in charge and you're mine," she riposted.

"We'll see about that," the little hero challenged her spouse.

--------------

Next time: The kids go out for the summer with Isabel.


	37. Reason Thirtyseven: Journey to the West

I don't own these characters or the original premise behind this saga. I don't even own the title of this chapter. I do own: Isabel, Jason, Todd, Jayden, Raziya, Mayah, Bokuden, Aztek, Nobunaga, Romah, and Chyna.

Reason Thirty-seven: Journey to the West

_All of them in one place…it's never a good thing._

The day was cloudy and it was storming on and off. The kids were all gathered at the Possible-Gooding home because the day for their parents did not slow down thanks to weather, unlike theirs. If it was pouring rain as if there was a monsoon, the kids were not allowed outside. Their parents did make an effort to get them together, though. Usually, they stayed with Monique since she worked at home, but that day, Todd decided to handle things.

Todd was off from school, even though his high school graduation was still a few days away. He could not wait for that day. His parents, Kim and Shego, were already expressing great pride in him for graduating, which he loved, even though he did not entirely understand the reason behind their feelings. He did not see why they were proud of him for doing something that they expected him to do.

Jayden was actually with her brother in his confusion on the pride displayed because he was graduating. She took it as him getting attention for something stupid and she did not hold her tongue when pointing that out. Her parents let her rant while Mayah got offended when Jayden tried to take away from Todd's great accomplishment of making it out of high school. Jayden refused to believe her brother graduating was great since it was not like he had a choice in doing anything else as Shego would have killed him if he tried to dropout or something like that. It was a bit weird since Shego would have gladly dropped out of high school if she could have. Betty liked teasing Shego in saying that she had finally completed her metamorphosis and was now Isabel, which Shego hated, especially since it was starting to seem so very true.

At the moment, the group of kids was as calm as they could be, which only meant that they had not managed to totally destroy the living room and they had not killed someone. They were playing a board game…well, they were making the attempt to play the game. With them, there were always side activities that went with games, like screaming, hitting, throwing pieces, and junk like that. There was the occasional sick move by Aztek to actually eat a game piece if he was annoyed enough and he wanted to ruin the game for everyone else. Right now, they were getting into the expected shouting matches and accusations of cheating.

Todd was parked on the sofa with a book. It was hard to believe from the placid expression on his face that he was actually in the same room as the little kids. He would move if someone got a weapon or one if the younger kids were in trouble. Until then, his nose was going to stay stuck in that book.

The game went on until Jayden got fed up with everything and flung the board out of sight. Her friends did not seem to care; they expected the move. Jayden seemed to have the shortest temper among them, even though Mayah ran a very close second. They decided to watch a movie since the game had not worked out, which meant that Todd was going to have to get off of his ass because they were going to want snacks to eat while watching the movie, which they did. Once they got their snacks though, everyone was calm and Todd was back on the couch.

While the movie played, the kids decided to talk too since they had seen it several times. They had a habit of talking through movies anyway, which did not bother anyone since their parents talked through movies sometimes too. The only one that would think to shush one of them was Aztek and he only did that to have an excuse to butt in on a conversation.

"You know, we're going to Japan again this summer," Bokuden informed his friends with a groan. By "we," he meant him and his brother.

"It's gonna be cool!" Nobunaga howled with joy, obviously ready to go.

Bokuden only frowned. The girls knew why Bokuden was frowning. He had developed a great dislike for Japanese cuisines. They did not understand how that worked since they knew that when his mother cooked, she made Japanese dishes and there was no way that he could get out of eating meals. So, he should have at least developed a taste for the food, but it seemed like the more he ate of a certain food, the more he started to hate it. He was becoming that way with Mexican foods too because his father often made or brought them Mexican cuisine. It was odd for him to be such a picky eater because he still was greedy.

"Hey, at least you get to see your cousins and go do some ninja training," Jayden pointed out to cheer up the blonde boy.

"I'm gonna practice with the Lotus blade!" Nobunaga declared with a proud grin while pointing to himself with his thumb.

Bokuden scoffed, rolling his eyes too. "Dad isn't allowed to let you practice with that," he pointed out.

It was now Nobunaga's turn to scoff. He would practice with what he wanted to practice with and anyone that tried to say otherwise would get his butt kicked, the child silently declared. Depending on the person, he might actually succeed in beating the person up. Nobunaga was already showing great gifts for ninjitsu and Tai Shing Pek Kwar. Still, he wished that he was better; he wanted to be the best and to be that, he knew that he would have to surpass not just his older brother, but their parents.

"What are you guys doing for the summer?" Bokuden asked his friends curiously.

"Hanging out with Grandma more than likely," Jayden answered and then she threw some popcorn at her brother to get his attention, which worked wonders. "We're hanging out with Grandma, right, booger?" she inquired.

"Don't call him that," Mayah commanded while pushing Jayden a bit. She was offended for Todd, even though she knew that was one of his nicknames. She just thought that it was disrespectful for his little sister to use it.

"What? That's his damn name, so don't push me," Jayden barked while countering with a shove of her own.

"His name is Smiley," Mayah stated soundly. That was what her peers would call him while she was around or they would suffer her wrath. Todd would run, as fast as he could more than likely, if he knew that fact.

"Will you just shut the hell up and lemme get it straight with what we're doing this summer?" Jayden riposted because she had little desire to bother with Mayah and her starting-to-seem-sick-and-wrong fascination with Todd. "So, weird brother, we're with Grandma this summer, right?"

"Yup," Todd confirmed without bothering to take his eyes off of his book.

"The summer is gonna be cool," Romah hummed while practically inhaling some gummi bears. The one problem the adults had with leaving Todd in charge was that they knew he would give the kids all kinds of unhealthy snacks when they wanted some. Not to mention he would let them have all the sugar they wanted and they would be bouncing off the walls when their parents finally came in.

"Razi, you going anywhere?" Bokuden asked curiously since she had not spoken up yet.

Raziya looked away and shook her head. Her friends were always going places, especially for vacations. She went places every now and then, but never as often as her friends. Mayah and her siblings went a bunch of places because they went with Todd and Jayden whenever Isabel came around.

"Not going anywhere again, huh?" Aztek inquired in a rather teasing tone.

"Shut up!" Raziya huffed and then she dumped a bowl of barbeque potato chips on his head. He did not seem to mind it much and picked up some chips off of the floor to eat.

"Yeah, she's not going anywhere," Mayah commented. It was fairly apparent considering her expression, not her actions against Aztek.

"You know, Razi, you should just come hang out with us. Grandma wouldn't mind and she always takes us out of the country…even when she's not supposed to," Jayden proposed with a smile. She thought that it would be great for Raziya to come along and she honestly doubted that Isabel would mind considering the usual crew that Isabel took with her when she doing "grandma things."

"You'd think she'd let me?" Raziya inquired curiously, speaking to Jayden.

"Probably. Right, booger?" Jayden said, using that nickname again to see if Mayah wanted to start up again. Todd spoke up before Mayah could harp on his little sister again.

"Probably," Todd agreed since Isabel had no problem dragging around Mayah and her siblings as well as himself and his sister. What could one more person hurt?

"Could you be a bit more concrete than that?" Raziya requested, sounding slightly irked that he had given her a wishy-washy response.

"You'll never know what she might say unless you ask and I can't speak exactly for her since I'm not her. You might want to run the idea by your parents, though. As the mini-monster said, Grandma does have a habit of taking us out of the country at a moment's notice and your parents might not like that," Todd explained. Hell, sometimes, their parents did not like it when Isabel just got the urge to flee the country with him and Jayden.

Raziya nodded to show that she understood. She hoped that her parents liked the idea and then she had to hope that Isabel agreed with it. From the few times that she had met Isabel, Raziya believed her friends' grandmother to be very kind and she believed that Isabel would let her be with her friends for the summer. Besides, what was one more child to the tribe that she was already going to have? Still, the little girl was not sure how her parents would react to the proposal and she also had no real clue how Isabel would react. Maybe Isabel did not want to drag around a kid that was not related to her, after all.

They all considered Mayah and her siblings as "relatives" to Isabel because she did take them around as if they were her grandchildren. They even referred to her as "grandma" most of the time. It was mostly due to the fact that Betty had a strained relationship with her mother and that seemed to be repeating itself with Mayah and Eleanor.

Early on, Betty's children did visit with her mother, but things had not been pleasant. Eleanor spoke down to Mayah, which the girl never appreciated and she expressed such, making sure to use strong language when doing so. Eleanor then began to conclude that Mayah was a "bad seed" and expressed that to Betty, which the one-eyed woman could not even listen to. So, after a while, she stopped sending Mayah to see her mother.

Eleanor did not seem to like Aztek too much either, mostly because he was a filthy child with a short attention span. He was also non-confrontational with most people, which would be hard to tell considering how he liked to get into things with Raziya and his big sister. It was just that most of the time when people scolded him, he walked off after listening for about a minute and he did that with his grandmother, which Eleanor did not like. She took it as a sign of disrespect.

Eleanor probably would have gotten along with Romah, although Betty was not so sure because her mother seemed to look for reasons to get on someone's case in her opinion. He was a calm child when not around Nobunaga. He liked sitting around playing video games, which Betty suspected her mother would have barked about, even if it did keep him quiet and he often played educational games. He just would not go anywhere without his brother and Aztek was no longer welcome at their maternal grandmother's house. Chyna was similar to Romah in that sense.

Chyna had not really gotten the chance to know Eleanor because she did not want to be around someone if her big sister was not welcome around the person. Mayah would not go near Eleanor if someone paid her at the moment, so Chyna would not go near the woman. Betty doubted that her mother would get along with Chyna anyway since Chyna seemed very determined in mimicking her big sister as best she could.

So, the Director-Jones siblings sort of adopted Isabel as their grandmother, which she did not mind. She knew them just as well as she knew her own grandkids and she liked them just as much as she liked her own grandchildren. They were all such precious, little imps in her opinion and she was rather honored with them picking her to act as their grandmother rather than just deciding their only grandparents were Dahntay's parents, who did adore the group and loved having them around.

Raziya did not have such a problem. Her grandparents on both sides were active in her life and loved her deeply, but she still wanted to hang out with Isabel over the summer because her friends were going to be with Isabel. So, she was going to have to run the idea by her parents.

--------------

Raziya kicked her feet back and forth as she sat at the dinner table with her father. He had his food in front of him along with notes from his work. He was trying to get things written down before Monique came into the dining room and reprimanded him for working at the table. He was not fast enough.

"Baby, I know you lost your mind if you're sitting here doing what I think you're doing," Monique commented as she came into the room with her plate and Raziya's plate. The reason that she and Raziya did not have their food at the same time as Felix was because he ate his broccoli without cheese while his wife and child would only eat broccoli if there was cheese on the vegetables.

"What? Huh?" Felix pretended to not know what she was talking about as he yanked his book down and managed to look rather innocent of all charges.

"Don't try me, boy," Monique warned her spouse as she put her food down and Raziya's food down. She sat across from Felix.

"What? I didn't do anything," he replied with a charming smile on his face.

Monique could only smile and shake her head, which let her husband know that he was off the hook for the moment. The family settled in for one of their rare dinners at the table. They usually ate in the living room while working on projects and things like that. It was all right to work on things in the living room, but not at the table when meals were going on if Monique was around anyway.

"Mommy, Daddy, we're not going anywhere this summer, right?" Raziya inquired after a few minutes of silence.

"Going somewhere like where?" Monique countered curiously.

"Anywhere because if not, I was wondering if you'd lemme go with Jade and everyone to stay with their grandma," Raziya explained.

"With Isabel?" both parents said at the same time. They looked at each other. They had heard some stories involving Isabel with her grandkids, stories that involved sudden flights over oceans and not informing parents until they were on the ground in a new time zone.

"Yeah," the child answered, missing the tone that her parents used that indicated that they were apprehensive with that plan.

"Um…we'll think about it, sweetheart," Felix said, trying his best to sound normal.

Raziya eyed her parents suspiciously. Like any child, she was skeptical when she heard a phase like "we'll think about it." It usually translated into "no" after all. She would prefer that they tell her straight out than to get her hopes up only to shoot them down later on.

"You're not gonna lemme go, are you?" Raziya inquired with a pout.

"We didn't say that," Monique argued in a gentle tone because of their daughter's expression and sorrowful tone.

"But, you're gonna. How come I can't go? I'm gonna be all by myself this summer," Raziya complained with a miserable groan. She, like her friends, was used to being around them when in Go City, but it would seem that she was going to be all alone, maybe until school started again in September.

"Did you even ask Isabel if it was all right? You can't just push yourself into someone else's trip," Felix pointed out, feeling it was a safe road to travel rather just saying plainly that he and Monique would rather not leave their daughter Isabel, especially since Isabel would already have her hands full with her wild grandkids.

Raziya conceded that one. It would not be good manners to just push her into someone else's trip, but she figured that she would need her parents' permission along with Isabel's and she could get her parents' approval much sooner than Isabel's. She was not sure what she was supposed to do if her parents did not give her permission, except hope that she got the chance to speak with Isabel sometime soon.

Well, Jayden took care of speaking with Isabel for her friend. She called her grandmother right after Raziya explained what her parents said and requested that Isabel let Raziya come with them over the summer. Isabel gave in with no problem. She was already going to have five children with her, so she did not see the problem with one more. She could keep a good eye on her grandkids anyway and Todd was an excellent help in her opinion. So, now, all Raziya had to do was get her parents' permission.

Monique and Felix tried dancing around the subject, but they were sort of trapped when they attended Todd's graduation; the usual suspects were all at the graduation, and some unusual, like Jason and Hego. Isabel was there and she did approach Monique and Felix about Raziya hanging out with her over the summer. They skirted the issue with her too, but she told them to think it over for a while. It was not like she was taking the kids away right after the graduation.

After dealing with Monique and Felix, Isabel went to go congratulate Todd. He grinned widely as his grandmother hugged him tightly and expressed the same pride in him that Kim and Shego did. He still did not understand it, but he certainly accepted it and enjoyed it.

They all went out for lunch where Todd spoke about football Jason and Hego. It seemed to be the only way that they could bond, but they did not seem to mind. Jason and Hego only occasionally turned away from the discussion to glance at Jayden and they only gave her their attention because she was being loud. Jayden was with her friends and talking to the Doctors Possible about science, which they were all enjoying.

Isabel was talking with Kim since they were sitting across from each other. Isabel wanted to talk about the show that was supposed to be being made based on Kim. Shego joked that her mother was trying to interject herself into production to do the martial arts.

"They probably don't have the money to hire me," Isabel boasted. She disliked working on television shows anyway because it was more frequent work than she wanted to do in show business at that point in her life and it cut into her second love, which was traveling. Her first love, of course, was her family.

"Probably not," Kim agreed. "They tried to get me and Yori to do it, but we don't have time for that."

"They should just get Auntie Victoria. She's like the low-budget version of you," Shego remarked, speaking to her mother.

"Don't you dare refer to my little sister as low-budget," Isabel scolded her daughter quite seriously.

Shego rolled her eyes, expecting the reprimand, and the conversation pressed on. Isabel glanced at Monique and Felix every now and then, seemingly trying to see if they had come to a conclusion yet. She also glanced down at the kids, who were having a good time with each other. She smiled fondly at the sight; it really would not bother her if she had to take all of them for the summer.

"You gonna eat that?" Bokuden asked Jayden, who was in the middle of a heated debate, arguing with Raziya as to why it was important to explore space. Raziya had made the mistake of saying that the money spent on space exploration should be spent on developing better technology on Earth. Jayden stopped mid-rant to answer the blonde boy.

"You know, this is why you always end up hating certain foods," the raven-haired girl replied.

"Yeah, you always eat too much of one thing," Raziya chimed in, agreeing with Jayden who only moments ago had been her bitter enemy.

"You do that 'til you get sick of it," Mayah ended the lecture.

"You gonna eat it?" Bokuden asked in a deadpan tone. He was referring to Jayden's chicken fingers. He had already eaten a giant bowl of chicken salad on his own before downing most of his little brother's chicken fingers. Nobunaga had not appreciated the sudden disappearance of his meal, but then again, he barely noticed since he was busy eating Ron's food.

"Take it," Jayden sighed while shoving the food dish over to her friend. She knew that there was no talking to Bokuden when it came meals. He just had to ruin foods for himself it seemed.

After lunch, they all went back to the Possible-Gooding residence where Todd got presents for graduating. The celebration continued on at the house with everyone just hanging out there. Isabel waited to see what Monique and Felix were going to do.

The couple was talking things over with each other on letting Raziya hang out with her friends over the summer. They discussed things with Kim to try to get an idea of how Isabel was when she took the children. Kim informed them that Isabel usually took the kids for two to four weeks and she always inevitably left the country with them on a whim it seemed most of the time, but every now and then the trip was somehow work-related. Despite the impulsive behavior and pure insanity of the kids, Isabel never lost anyone on a trip or something like that and she never reported that she would never take them anywhere else. Kim gave a rather sparkling report and thought that they should let Raziya go with the others. Kim declared that Raziya would have a blast, but Felix and Monique seemed skeptical on that.

--------------

Isabel cornered Monique and Felix late that night and informed them that she was leaving. She wanted to give them a chance to tell her what they decided. Jayden and Raziya noticed her parents speaking with Isabel and they jumped to the conclusion that it meant Raziya would be joining them for the summer. They dashed over to the three and began prematurely thanking people for letting Raziya go.

"You two should hold off on things until you have the complete picture. I would think little scientists like yourselves would know that," Isabel remarked, teasing the little kids for their enthusiasm.

"Whaddaya mean?" the girls inquired curiously, adorably speaking simultaneously.

"You two are getting ahead of yourselves is what I mean," Isabel answered in a patient tone.

"Does that mean I can't go?" Raziya asked her parents with a pout. She looked absolutely heartbroken.

"But, Grandma, you said she could go," Jayden pointed out, sounding slightly outraged. She felt like her grandmother lied to her and her grandmother was never supposed to lie to her.

"She can," Isabel assured her granddaughter. She then turned her attention back to Monique and Felix, waiting to see what they would do.

"Don't you think that's too many kids to look after?" Monique inquired, feeling that was a safe route to travel in the discussion.

"One more to my usual bunch isn't a problem. Besides, Smiley is a big help with keeping an eye on everyone. Also, everyone behaves with me, don't they, Jade?" Isabel said confidently.

"Uh-huh," Jayden confirmed, nodding deeply. "Everybody better behave with Grandma."

"That's right," Isabel stated.

"And you won't take her out of the country without telling us?" Felix asked. He was not keen on the idea of his little girl just leaving the country out of the blue, especially without him or his wife being around.

Isabel laughed a bit; her granddaughter followed suit. Jayden thought that it was impossible for Isabel to take them anywhere without a plane being involved. They always left the country when they were with Isabel. It was like a given to the kids and even to Todd.

"I don't recall making that promise," Isabel informed the couple, sounding and looking playful, but she was very serious.

"Well, that's the part giving us a bit of trouble," Monique stated.

"I can imagine. Perhaps you should give it a chance though, Raziya would enjoy herself undoubtedly. Besides, it'll give Jade someone to argue with when getting beaten up by Mayah grows tiresome," Isabel remarked.

"What!" Jayden hollered in disbelief and anger. "Mayah never beats me up! Where is she? I'll kick her ass right now and show you, Grandma!" the child declared and she ran off to go find Mayah to prove to her grandmother that she could easily take Mayah. Isabel laughed.

"You just started a fight, you know that?" Felix asked, even though he suspected that Isabel was very aware of what she did.

"No, Mayah's gone home already and Jade'll forget I said that by the time she sees Mayah again. She's so easily distracted, after all," Isabel replied, smiling softly.

"Mommy, Daddy, please lemme go with everyone. I'll be really good," Raziya promised. "I'll never leave Miss Isabel's side. I promise," she vowed.

Monique and Felix sighed as their daughter hit them with the most wicked of all pouts that they had ever seen. They suspected that she took lessons from Jayden because of the expression and how it almost seemed professional. When they took a few seconds to answer, Raziya went from pouting to looking as if she was ready to burst into tears and her expression was genuine. Raziya did not want to be alone for two to four weeks and she wanted her parents to understand that.

"Look, sweetie…" Monique started to say to Raziya, but she could not make it passed how Raziya seemed so ready to cry. Monique sighed.

"Fine, you can go," Felix caved. "But, you have to call us everyday," he added.

"Okay!" Raziya cheered and her expression cleared up immediately. She hugged both of her parents.

Isabel smiled. "Don't worry about her. I'll take good care of her," she tried to assure the parents.

"Just try to stay in this hemisphere, please," Monique implored. Isabel only smiled.

----(New day)

"Grandma, you know this isn't right," Todd commented as he started plucking bags off of a luggage carousel.

"Now, why would you say that, my little fire warrior?" Isabel inquired, looking amused because of the fact that she referred to her grandson as "little." Todd was almost as tall as her husband, which made him taller than she was. He was an impressive sight and he was still growing.

"Because you said you were going to stay in the western hemisphere," he replied.

"I never said that. Besides, we're still in the west…sort of," Isabel answered.

"Yeah, I don't think western Europe counts," he riposted with a good-natured smile.

"It's a west at least," she countered with a smile of her own.

Todd laughed a bit as he continued to gather everyone's bags and did not bother pointing out that anywhere could be "a west." Only his grandmother would spontaneously fly halfway around the world with six children that were eleven and under and not think anything of it. He sometimes wondered what she would do if one of them accidentally left or forgot a passport.

"Everybody got everything?" Todd asked to make sure and there were confirmations all around.

"Well then, let's go," Isabel announced.

"Maybe we could go see Paris," Mayah suggested as she walked next to Todd, who gave her a disturbed look.

"It is the city of love," Jayden commented, which caused Mayah to smile widely. That was just perfect, Mayah thought with a heavenly smile.

"Why do you even know that?" Todd asked his sister in a desperate tone.

"Mommy said so," Jayden answered in a "doy" voice. How the hell else would she know something like that? She did not even get what it meant to call Paris "the city of love."

"Now the question is how would your Mommy know that?" Isabel remarked, teasing her absent daughter.

"I think she took Mom there once when we were with Grandpa and Mee-ma," Jayden replied. She had been sitting there when her parents were talking about the trip, but she had not been paying them much mind at the time.

"Wow, way to go She-she," Todd muttered.

"Impressive," Isabel mumbled to herself. So, her daughter could be romantic without any help.

"So, now you can take me," Mayah said to Todd while taking hold of his hand. The redhead pulled away, not thinking about how Mayah might take the action. She did not really care and just reached for him again. Whenever he ran, she never took it to heart and only chased him more. His rejection only encouraged her from what he could tell, but it was all that he could do.

"We've not even in France and we're not going…right, Grandma?" Todd begged to know. He did not even want to think about how Mayah might act toward him if they were to go to France.

"Hmm…maybe we could swing by France," Isabel considered, a thoughtful finger pressed to her chin.

"Grandma!" Todd whined.

"I'm just joking. I have other plans for us, but first, I need to get some work out of the way. So, for the moment, all little elves should enjoy themselves in what used to be the center of the ancient world, Rome," Isabel announced with a broad smile.

"Hey, it's named after me," Romah declared. Everyone just laughed.

--------------

Next time: the group in Rome and then Todd comes face to face with death.


	38. Reason Thirtyeight: When in Rome

I don't own these characters. I also don't own the original premise that this saga is based on. I do own: Isabel, Todd, Mayah, Jayden, Raziya, Aztek, Romah, Chyna, Bokuden, Nobunaga and Shi.

Reason Thirty-eight: When in Rome

_Everything should be fine. After all, how much trouble could they possibly get into?_

Isabel was keeping an eye on all the munchkins in her care while trying to have a business conversation over the phone. It was working out fairly well since the kids were busy snapping pictures of everything since they were standing on the streets of Rome. They were in awe, as they typically were when they went somewhere with Isabel. Todd had wandered away from the group a few yards and for a while, no one noticed, but that did not last too long.

Mayah saw that Todd was gone because she turned around to take a picture of him only to find that he was not where she last saw him. She scanned the square for him and found the redhead speaking with some girl that looked around Todd's age. Mayah frowned, upset for a reason that was beyond her at the moment. All she knew was that she wanted to get her Todd away from that little milkmaid.

"Jade," Mayah said, tapping her cohort on the shoulder to ensure that she got the younger girl's attention.

"Hmm?" Jayden asked, turning her attention away from what she knew was going to be an entertaining scene soon if only she watched long enough. Raziya was standing by a fountain and Aztek was teasing her by pretending that he was going to lick her with his unusually long tongue. There was a bloody lip in that boy's future, Jayden was sure of that, and she wanted to see that.

"Look at that," Mayah replied while pointing toward Todd.

Jayden followed her friend's arm to spy what her brother was doing. She frowned when she saw that Todd was talking to some girl too. Jayden disliked when Todd spoke to girls because it meant that she might have to share him. She hated on the few occasions when Todd had girlfriends and she wanted to do something with him, but he had other engagements. As her big brother, she believed that she should be first on his list to do stuff with, not some girl that was probably going to label him "weird" in a few days and decide that she disliked "weird" people.

"Who the fuck is that?" Jayden inquired with a raised eyebrow.

"Hell if I know," Mayah answered, her own scowl in place.

"Well, I'm gonna go find out and get her the hell away from my brother," the raven-haired girl declared.

"And how you gonna do that?" the elder girl asked curiously.

"I'm gonna go over there and punch Smiles in the stomach," Jayden answered as if that was the most logical thing to her. She did not blame the girls for talking to Todd. He was pleasant to speak with being highly intelligent and all. She blamed him because he should know better than to put other people before her.

Mayah sighed and rolled her eyes. She should have known that was Jayden's plan. She did not want Todd to get hurt. She just wanted that girl away from "her Smiley," especially since he was making that girl laugh and she was touching Todd's bare arm. The sight was enough to make her want to ground her teeth together in anger before making that girl suffer, but first, she needed to get Jayden away from the idea of punching Todd.

"That's not a good plan," the older girl told her friend.

"What's wrong with it? You think I should hit him in the chest, right?" Jayden asked with a nod because she thought that was an even better idea. If she hit him right in the solar plexus, he might actually learn his lesson. Yeah, so maybe her friend had a point and her original plan was not good. She needed to aim higher.

"No, you shouldn't hit him at all. We just need a way to get that girl away from him. I'm going to need a distraction," Mayah said.

"Like what?" Jayden inquired curiously.

Mayah shrugged because she did not know at the moment. She was not usually the one that thought of plans; that was more Jayden's department. She looked over at Todd and then glanced at Jayden. She suddenly got an idea thanks to Jayden's violent schemes. She knew just what kind of distraction she could use.

"I got it," the older girl proclaimed with a sinister smile.

"What?" Jayden asked in a very interested tone.

Mayah wasted no time in showing the younger girl. She popped Jayden a perfect hit right on the nose with a brilliant right hook. Jayden fell back, holding her face, which had snapped to the side the moment of impact. By the time she recovered, Mayah had run off, appearing to seek protection from Todd.

"Fucking bitch," Jayden muttered, referring to her friend as she took off after the older girl.

Mayah knew that Jayden was coming for her without even turning around. Sucker punches never went unpunished in their little group. Still, Jayden's fury would serve her purpose and really that was all that mattered. She dashed over to Todd, pretending to want his protection, but she really just wanting to draw his attention to the mad-as-hell Jayden.

"Mayah, what are you doing?" Todd asked as the eleven-year-old hid behind him. She just pointed as her answer and he turned to look.

Todd saw a fearsome sight, namely his little sister blazing toward them with murder in her olive eyes. He guessed that the look had something to do with the blood pouring out of her nose, which he bet Mayah had something to do with. Before he could get any definite answers though, he needed to stop Jayden. So, he intercepted her before she got to Mayah.

Todd scooped Jayden up in his arms and held her off the ground. She struggled as he pressed her into his solid chest to restrain her; he was sort of bear-hugging her. Jayden took exception to him holding her back as she was going to kill that sucker-punching bitch she called a friend.

"Lemme go, booger! I'm gonna whip her ass!" Jayden declared with a snarl.

"Calm down, mini-monster," Todd commanded while keeping a good grip on his sister. He thought that she might actually kill Mayah if he let her go because she seemed _that_ angry. Hey, it was not often that someone threw a sucker-punch in their group and it was even rarer for Jayden to be the one caught by such a move, so of course, she took exception to being hit.

While Todd was busy wrangling his sister, Mayah turned her attention to the object of her disdain for the moment. She scowled deeply while taking in the sight of the teenage girl. She was tall blonde in a short, light blue sundress, very curvy. Mayah did not get the appearance yet, being only eleven after all, but she did know that she hated the girl.

"Hey," Mayah said and the teenage female turned her attention to her. "You see him?" Mayah asked while pointing to Todd. "He's mine, so you stay the fuck away from him," she ordered in a serious, harsh tone.

The teenager was taken aback by Mayah's words and her tone. The child's serious expression helped in shocking the teenager since the little girl looked almost like an adult from the look on her face. Mayah was not done yet, though. She continued on and eventually, Todd had to turn around because he heard something odd going on behind him; he heard crying. He turned to see the girl that he was talking to utterly surprised, almost as if she was traumatized, and tears were flowing down her face. She ran off while Mayah looked rather satisfied with that, or so the small, evil smirk that she was wearing implied. He sighed; he did not even want to know what just happened.

"Heaven help me," Todd muttered to himself.

The redheaded teen was able to put his sister down as she finally seemed to calm down. He decided to walk back over to the group of youngsters as Romah looked like he was straying too far from Isabel and he was unwisely ignoring her as she beaconed him back with her hand. Jayden and Mayah watched Todd walk off.

"Good distraction," Mayah congratulated her friend. She even had the nerve to smile at the younger girl.

"Distraction?" Jayden echoed while wiping blood away from nose. She was the fucking distraction? Oh, hell no.

"Yeah, way to go. Good work," Mayah said, still beaming, even though she had a good feeling that her companion was not in an appreciative mood.

Jayden's expression did not change as she nodded, seemingly agreeing with her friend's words. Mayah never saw the hit coming, even though she somewhat expected it. Jayden cracked her friend in the same spot that Mayah had hit her. The mismatched-eyed girl let out a yelp as her head snapped to the side from the force of the blow.

"Fucking bitch," Mayah muttered into her hand as she brought it up to cover her ailing nose.

"I'm not your fucking distraction," Jayden informed her friend in a heated tone.

"Too late, you already were," the older girl pointed out rather smugly.

Jayden just snorted in anger since it was hard to argue with the truth. She had already been the distraction, which was not a role that she liked. None of the girls liked being used by one of the others; it was something that the girls were more likely to do than the guys in the crew. They preferred it when things were planned out and agreed that one of them would be a distraction. None of them, girls and guys alike, enjoyed being tricked, but then again, most people did not like being tricked.

The two pals then walked off to return to the group as Isabel was disconnecting her call. She looked down at the kids and was not surprised to see three bloody faces. Mayah and Jayden the first two and then there was Aztek. His lip was busted, split right down the middle. Raziya socked him after he had come too close to her face with his disgustingly long tongue; he prided himself on being able to touch his nose with his tongue.

"Okay, the first thing we're going to do is get you guys faces cleaned up and then we're going to go shoot a movie scene for a few days," Isabel announced.

"You mean we get to stay in Rome for days?" Jayden asked in awe. She and her friends loved the city already, especially Raziya because of all of the ancient statues and things. The artist in Raziya was being overloaded and she was enjoying it so much that she had already begged her parents over the phone to take her there again one day. Her parents had already figured out that she was overseas, so it was not like she had squealed on Isabel.

"Yes, we'll be in Rome for about a week. Try to hold off the physical abuse while we're here," Isabel replied.

"Ah, this is nothing," Jayden said about her bloody nose, waving it off.

"Really," Mayah concurred, referring to her bloody nose. She scoffed to show that she was not bothered by her injury.

"Chyna hits harder," Aztek scoffed, which just earned another punch from Raziya. That one was landed on his shoulder. "Ow!" he complained and rubbed the abused area.

"Jerk," Raziya said.

Aztek, never one to learn his lesson, just made a mocking face, which earned him another punch. He cut Raziya a rather sharp glance for the pain, but that was it. It was not that he would never hit a girl, as he hit them often, but he just was not in the mood for a fight at the moment. He was done with bothering her now and wondered what new thing would keep his attention.

"Let's go see the Coliseum," Aztek suggested, speaking to Isabel since she was in charge.

"Hmm, that's a good idea. We'll do that, but then I have to go to the set for this scene," Isabel informed the group. No one argued and they were off to the famous Coliseum after making sure those noses were not broken.

It did not take them too long to get kicked out of the Coliseum either. They probably would have been all right if there were not so many people around. The children were acting as hyperactive as always, which Isabel did not mind. The other people around the place did, though, especially when Romah decided to use a few people as stepping stones to get to a higher deck. The kids' behavior was not really what got them kicked out, although it was a leading factor.

The main reason the group was dismissed from the historical landmark was because of Isabel and Todd. When the people started getting frustrated with the kids climbing over them or nearly knocking them over, they started grabbing the children to get them to stop scurrying about the place. It was always a bad idea to touch one of the children when a caretaker of theirs was around. Isabel handled one person, Todd another, and two fights actually started because of that. Isabel had started her own fight by belittling the man that had snatched up Aztek while Todd had been "forced" into fighting because a man that grabbed Mayah pushed him after he confronted the man about touching her. Todd might not start fights, but he did not back down from them when he was slightly pressed.

None of them really minded getting thrown out; the kids thought it was hilarious. Isabel did not mind because she had to get to work anyway. She and Todd took a head count to make sure that they had everyone and then they had to hurry to the other end of the city. It was a shock to those on the movie set that Isabel had shown up with a bunch of kids, although that they had heard rumors about her traveling with a pack over the summers. It was hard to believe, but it seemed to be true.

It was on the movie set that Isabel gave the kids all stern looks and requested that they behave. They knew that they were expected to be quiet and out of the way. They were not sure what would happen if they were not that, but they had no intention of finding out the punishment if they did not listen. Isabel walked off while Todd was left to make sure that the kids did not act out.

Todd ignored the odd looks that he was getting from people that walked by him. He had long ago learned that he was a curious sight when he was babysitting. A teenage boy that was well over six feet and weighed nearly two hundred pounds was watching half-a-dozen rugrats had to be an odd scene. He did not mind, but it certainly did earn him some giggles and craned eyebrows.

Isabel returned to the group and told them that things might take a while. She gave them some money and told Todd to "let them go run wild somewhere." Todd nodded and obeyed. The kids actually just wanted to run wild on the real life movie set, which Todd allowed since his grandmother did not say anything. Isabel was actually happy that they stuck around, even though they were getting on a lot of people's nerves. As long as they were not getting on her nerves or breaking things, she was fine with them and she could use Todd.

"Fire warrior, come here for a second," Isabel beckoned her grandson.

"Yes, ma'am?" Todd replied as he stepped over.

"I'm using you as a showcase to get my point across, so you can help them see how I want this to go," Isabel explained.

"Happy to be of service," Todd stated sincerely with a grin.

The two stars of the movie, fellows that were quite older than Todd, wondered if Isabel was serious. Sure, Todd looked like a tough guy, but his voice did not suggest such. Besides, they doubted such a big young man could do the graceful moves that Isabel tended to map out.

Todd surprised them, of course. But, he was not one to enjoy being a partner with his grandmother when she was showing moves. Isabel did not go easy on her family when she knew that they were martial artists too, which was something that Shego could attest to. Todd ended up getting slammed into a mat, coughing on impact from the force that his grandmother had flipped him with. By the time she was done, Todd was more than happy to be getting away. He was going to need a rubdown later on and he knew it.

While Isabel continued going through the motions with the actors, Raziya and Jayden wandered over. They started mimicking what they saw, going at each other like the actors were supposed to. Isabel smiled when she saw the girls.

"You guys take a hint from them and do it just like that," Isabel instructed the actors while pointing to Jayden and Raziya. The actors balked at the idea that the girls were actually better than they were.

By the time Isabel's work was done, the movie staff were not sure if they were happy or sad to see her and her group go. The kids were like endearing demons. They were cute, but evil, or dirty in Aztek's case. It was adorable when they watched the kids mirror the fight scene, but it was annoying when they got in the way of a shot or took a camera apart in Raziya and Jayden's case. But, even then, when they saw what Raziya and Jayden did with the camera once they disassembled the device was amazing and the crew had a hard time being mad at them.

With work out of the way, Isabel informed her wild bunch that it was time to play. They packed their bags and boarded a plane for the unknown. Isabel wanted the next stop to be a surprise and she was willing to bet that they would all love the next stop.

----(New day)

"Land of the Rising Sun!" Aztek howled as the group exited the airport, piling into two taxicabs.

"Shut up," Mayah scolded her brother for being so loud, for him anyway, and acting like an insane tourist. She slapped him in the back of the head.

Aztek did not respond verbally, but he did clip his big sister with his elbow. She pushed him in the back for the move. He fell forward into the cab, landing on the backseat. She kept pushing him until he was fully in the cab. She climbed in, followed by Chyna, who was followed by Romah. Isabel rode with them because Todd had already hopped in a cab with his sister and Raziya; he was trying to avoid being in a small space with Mayah.

Todd's cab followed behind Isabel's and they were off. The cabs were instructed to go to a seldom used mountain road and they were also told to drop their passengers off in the middle of nowhere. Both drivers thought it was odd.

"You sure this is where you want to go?" the driver asked, speaking English to Isabel.

"Positive," she answered with a sickeningly sweet smile.

He did not argue. Todd's driver was not as polite, so it was a good thing that he was not the one driving Isabel and her group. As soon as the driver got rude with her brother, Jayden jumped in. She barked at him in perfect Japanese to "mind your own damn business." The driver was very stunned by her outburst while Todd sighed; he could not take Jayden anywhere, he thought.

"Where are we?" Raziya asked curiously as everyone packed up their gear, strapping things to their backs and all.

"Some place you guys will love. We just have to do a lot of walking to get there," Isabel replied.

"Walking bites!" Aztek complained while hooking his backpack around his shoulders.

"We did nothing but walking in Rome," Raziya pointed out in a know-it-all tone that she tended to take when dealing with the dirty boy.

"Did I ask for Razi's smartass answer?" Aztek countered, which earned him a clean smack with Raziya's suitcase. He coughed and hit the pavement.

"This might be a longer walk than I first assumed," Isabel muttered to herself. She had failed to take into account how the kids were going to interact on the way there when she was considering her little surprise.

Still, the group secured all of their things and started their hike up the mountain that they had been dropped off at. Through the walk, Isabel had to pick up Chyna, which was expected because she was the youngest of the crew. Romah also had to be picked up; Todd carried him on his shoulders. Romah liked the view from up there. Everyone else was on their own, which they liked because it was sort of a competition that way and none of them wanted to be the first to fall down. It also prompted a grown-up feeling between the little ones that were walking because they were doing just what Isabel and Todd were doing.

When they got to the top of the mountain, the kids were all surprised. There was a gateway and through there was what appeared to be a town because it was an area with several buildings. Isabel informed them that they were at a school. A school called Yamanouchi.

"Bo," the girls realized. That was where Bokuden went to school to learn to be a ninja.

"Bokuden!" Jayden called as loud as she possibly could, which was better than a bullhorn, as she, Raziya, Mayah, and Aztek all charged into the school.

"Is this all right, Grandma?" Todd asked curiously as he put Romah down for the boy to run off with the others.

"Of course it is," Isabel answered as she put Chyna down.

Todd was skeptical because he knew that the Yamanouchi school was supposed to be well-guarded secret and they were not keen on letting outsiders just wander into the place. Still, they were there already, so there was nothing for him to do, but wait and see. Isabel did walk off to go handle things about their arrival.

--------------

Todd could not believe how accepting the ninja were that they were there, but it would seem that Isabel was a celebrity there. And when he thought celebrity, he meant it like the president of a country was a celebrity. People wanted her autograph and everything. The headmaster, Master Sensei, quickly invited them to watch some matches that were going on.

Jayden and the crew were already in the building where the fighting was going on. They had also found Bokuden and Nobunaga. It was like they all had radar for each other; or it could have been because the brothers heard Jayden's loud mouth from clear across campus. The kids all looked very pleased to be together again.

Todd stood off to the side as matches went on. Apparently, the matches were based on the loser would get off the mat while the winner kept fighting. There were a couple of people that won a few times in a row, but eventually a girl stepped up that stood out even among them.

"Watch her," Yori said to Isabel.

"She something special?" the emerald-eyed fighter inquired.

"Very special," Yori stated with pride.

"You trained her?" Isabel asked curiously because Yori's tone.

"When she was younger," the ebony-haired ninja answered.

Isabel nodded and she watched the girl, who looked to be around Todd's age, maybe older. She was dressed similar to the other students, but she had the sleeves torn off to her top, showing off some rather cut biceps. Her hazel-colored eyes stood out sharply, mostly because she had her head shaven cleanly bald. She was a little tall and looked almost like she believed bullets would bounce off her skin. She had a powerful presence to her. She walked calmly into the designated area for fighting when it was her turn and the winner of the previous match looked ready to flee the scene.

The match was over before it began as far as the opponents were concerned, but for the audience it was over almost as quickly. It only took one blow from the bald girl for her to be declared the winner and her opponent to be unconscious. The hit had been so quick that if a person blinked, they missed it.

"Whoa," Isabel muttered, sounding almost impressed. The kids were of like mind on that one.

"I bet Smiley could do that," Mayah stated after she and her friends got over their awe of the ninja's skills.

"Yeah, probably," Jayden concurred with proud smile.

"Yeah," the other friends agreed.

Todd glanced down at them, but he did not say anything. He wondered why they thought so highly of him. He knew that he was older than they were and everything, but why did they think that he could do everything? He never considered that it might have had something to do with the fact that they knew he succeeded in everything that he tried. It was sort of the same reason that he looked up to his Kimmie and She-she.

The kids turned their attention back to the bald girl as a new match began. She wiped the floor with that opponent too. There was a noticeable pattern by the time the fifth opponent was knocked clear across the room. The kids were getting a kick out of watching her work, although they did make it a point to state that Todd definitely could beat her in a fight if necessary. Eventually, the words seemed to get to the girl.

The bald female ninja marched over to the kids in a fury if her stomping was any indication of her emotional state. They all looked up at her, none of them showing any fear, even though they had just watched her wipe the floor with a dozen well-trained ninjas. She did not appear too happy either, but they were still grinning up a storm and looking like they always did.

"Who's this person you insist can beat me?" she demanded to know, speaking Japanese to them.

"Him," they all answered and pointed up at Todd, who grinned nervously as hazel brown eyes shot up at him.

The girl eyed Todd with disdain in her gaze, a scowl tugging at her full lips. It would seem that she did not like that kids thought anyone could beat her. Todd rubbed the top of his messy hair, hoping that she would just walk away.

"You beat me, gaijin (foreigner)?" she demanded to know in forced English.

"I never said that," Todd answered, also speaking English.

"Smiley, run while you got the chance," Ron suggested in a whisper; he was standing near the redheaded teenager. He was totally serious in that suggestion too.

"Beat her ass, bro!" Jayden cheered, pumping her fist in the air.

"You beat me?" the bald female demanded to know again, still speaking to the redheaded boy.

"I never said that," Todd repeated.

"Show me," she ordered him.

Todd was going to protest, but she grabbed him by the collar of his tee-shirt and flung him into the center of the room, which was where the fighting was going on. He coughed as he landed on his back on the thin "ring" mat and she stomped over to him.

"He's in trouble," Ron commented. Rufus, who was standing on the blonde's shoulder, nodded and squeaked out an "uh-huh."

"Oh, yeah," Yori concurred and Isabel just nodded.

"On your feet," the bald female commanded Todd.

"My life is just full of forceful women I guess," Todd muttered to himself as he flipped up to his feet. The girl got into her fight stance while he did not. "I don't suppose there's a way to talk you out of fighting, huh?" he inquired, smiling as he spoke despite the fact that he was kind of nervous.

She looked at him curiously, not understanding him totally. But, she could tell that he was not looking to fight her, which annoyed her. "Hands," she ordered as her eyes flashed with anger. She was telling him to put his hands up.

"Let's talk about this," Todd suggested in a calm tone. He was rather uninterested in fighting with her for no reason other than the fact that she disliked that he traveled with his own fan club.

"Hands," she growled.

"Okay, okay, okay. I'll put up my hands, but first tell me your name at least," Todd requested. He thought that he might be able to treat it as a friendly match if he at least had her name.

"She doesn't speak English all that well, Smiley," Yori informed him since he seemed to be trying to get through to the bald teen.

"Oh. Okay," Todd replied, nodding to show he understood. He turned his attention back to the girl that seemed to want to kill him. "Name?" he requested in Japanese.

"Shi," she told him.

"I hope you mean 'four'," he replied in a bit of a nervous tone while holding up four fingers.

The girl looked at his fingers and then she shook her head. "No, the other shi."

Todd gulped. "I thought as much." Shi was Japanese for death.

--------------

Next time: Todd's fate and the kids' reaction to it.


	39. Reason Thirtynine: Learning experience

I don't own these characters. I also don't own the premise that this saga is based. I do own: Isabel, Todd, Jayden, Raziya, Mayah, Aztek, Romah, Chyna, Bokuden, Nobunaga, and Shi.

Reason Thirty-nine: Learning experience

_Given the chance, those guys would probably get themselves killed._

Todd was looking at Death. And some decidedly very male part of his brain noted immediately that death was cute, even with a bald head. In fact, death would be down right gorgeous if she was not going hurt him as soon as he put his hands up in a fighting stance.

The death that Todd was eyeing right now was a ninja girl by the name of Shi. She was a tanned skinned girl that appeared to be his age. Her head was shaven cleanly bald and she had piercing hazel eyes that were staring freezing daggers at his heart at the moment. Her nicely full lips were turned down into a scowl that would probably frighten an angry polar bear. She had an enchanting looking face, something like a succubus, Todd commented mentally since she was looking to kill him, through no fault of his own worst yet!

Though her face looked rather soft, her fighting stance looked anything but that. Since she had the sleeves of her top ripped off, he could see her muscular arms, which made him think of a lioness' limbs and she was probably going to try to take his head off with those things just like a big cat. And she certainly did look ready to tear him asunder, all because of his sister and her friends. Well, no reason to cry about it, he told himself. He just had to make sure he got out of the match with his head intact or his grandmother was going to have a tough time explaining to his She-she and Kimmie why he was killed in a routine visit to Japan.

"Put your hands up," Shi ordered Todd once more, speaking in a low, menacing voice; she spoke in Japanese. She was going to show those brats that he was with that no one could defeat her.

"You know, you don't have to take this so personally," Todd commented, also speaking in Japanese after Yori told him that Shi did not speak English very well. He spoke Japanese with ease, having his Kimmie, Yori, Ron, and his grandmother as tutors and he had been to the country many times in his life. He spoke Japanese even softer than he spoke English.

"Put your hands up." She could not believe that someone dared to think that a boy with the voice of a mouse could do anything to her.

Her tone told Todd that if he did not obey that time, she was just going to take his head off without him trying to defend himself. He shrugged and got down into his fighting stance. His little "fan club," which consisted of his sister and her friends, began to cheer for him immediately when they saw that he was going to fight. They banged on the wooden floor with their palms while hooting and hollering for Todd.

"They're gonna get the poor kid killed," Ron remarked, referring to how the kids' cheering was going to be the end of Todd. It was thanks to them that the redheaded teen was staring at death anyway.

"Smiles' stance looks odd," Yori said as she looked at Todd. She never really noticed his stance on the occasions that she saw him fight because he was known to attack quickly in the "friendly" matches that she had seen. When he was sparring against his She-she, it was hard to consider the match friendly.

"He decided to mix his kung-fu stance with his Tae Kwan Do stance," Isabel informed Yori. The redheaded young man had been practicing Tae Kwan Do on his own for almost as long as his mothers had been teaching him their different martial arts.

"When did he decide that?" Yori inquired with an elegant ebony eyebrow arched in curiosity.

"When he noticed it kept Kim at bay a few seconds longer than his old stance," Isabel replied with an amused smile.

"He's a pretty smart kid," Ron commented with a laugh.

"As my firefly likes to say, she doesn't raise fools…only demons," Isabel remarked.

"That would explain the nicknames of 'gremlin' and 'goblin.' Not to mention, Jade is a little monster," Ron said, still laughing.

Todd was not paying them any mind. He was keeping his eyes focused on Shi, waiting for her to attack. Usually, he attacked first, but that was when he was going against his She-she because he knew that she was offensive-minded and would come at him with a strong attack. He liked to take away her chance to use her most powerful assault, but that only came from the knowledge of knowing how his She-she fought. Now, sure, he had just watched Shi in a dozen or so battles, but that did not tell him enough to where he felt like he should run in there and try to kick her head off her shoulders before she put him on his back like she had done all of her other opponents.

He knew her style rather well, though. Like Yori, Shi used a mix of ninjitsu and Tai Shing Pek Kwar. Knowing the mix did not mean much considering the fact that he could not beat Yori in a fight either. He could not beat Ron either, who mostly used monkey kung-fu when sparring with him. They swore to high heavens that he was a grand fighter, better than they were at his age, yet he could not beat any of them, meaning the adults in his life, and then there was also the fact that he had heard Ron's comment about how he was going to get killed. It would seem that he was the underdog.

"So what?" Todd told himself. "Never give up before the battle starts. Pop can do anything and so can I," he promised himself. He was going to live up to his parents and the legacy that they were leaving him and in order to do that, he was going to have to live through the match.

Shi came at Todd after he had that little pep talk for himself. She was running at him, appearing to ready to use a move that he had already seen her use on an opponent to finish him. He easily dodged it, which surprised the hell out of her since she was not used to someone dodging her.

"What?" the bald female muttered in disbelief.

"Poor decision, coming at Smiles with a move he's already seen," Jayden commented and her friends agreed with that assessment.

Todd counterattacked Shi while she was in shock and he ended up forcing her back. She was incredulous, as was most of the room. She looked up at Todd with hatred in her eyes, feeling embarrassed to have been touched by a rather ridiculous looking boy, in her opinion anyway.

"That'll be the only hit you get, outsider," Shi informed Todd.

"We'll see about that," he replied with a rather cocky looking smirk.

"Yeah, that's Shego's son," Ron commented when he noticed the expression that Todd was sporting.

Shi came at Todd again with new moves after that. He barely was able to dodge, quickly figuring out that she had him beat in speed and the only thing working for him in not getting hit was anticipation. Being his size had disadvantages, they both thought. He could only be so fast, after all.

Todd figured out that he was going to have to counter if he wanted her rapid assault to cease. He surprised her with an almost-lightning fast kick, which she barely dodged. She leaped away from him to get away from his follow-through kick. She looked at him in disbelief again; how the hell could a man his size move so smoothly, quickly, and gracefully? Maybe those kids were on to something, she dared to consider, even though she still refused to believe that he could or would defeat her.

"He's a lot faster than I remember," Yori mumbled when she saw Todd move. It had been a long time since she saw him fight, but he seemed like a totally new warrior from those few moves.

"Yeah," Ron agreed in some shock. He almost could not believe that he was watching Todd in combat from the way the tall teen was moving.

Todd gathered himself and got back into his fighting stance while Shi stared at him, trying to figure out what kind of creature he was. His little fan club was in a whirl now, hooting and hollering even louder for him to win. Nobunaga was the only one left banging on the floor, cheering the redhead on, but he was doing it with such force that it sounded like all of the kids were still doing it. Todd looked ready to laugh because of their antics.

"He's not even taking this seriously!" Shi thought in a fury when she noticed the smile trying to play on his lips.

The bald ninja dashed at Todd, planning to make him feel her wrath. He noticed the change in her and ducked and dodged her almost blinding attacks now. He blocked punches and kicks that seemed to come from every direction and then just as soon as he was going to counter, she seemed to vanish right in front of him. He gawked at the open space and then quickly ducked to avoid having his head punched through. Shi could not believe that she missed and then jumped away as he tried to sweep her legs out from under her. They both got into their fighting stances when there was some space between then.

"Kick her ass, Smiley!" Jayden howled with a grin.

"Yeah, go for it!" Nobunaga agreed, still pounding on the floor with his palms as the battle went on.

"No one beats me. I won't let anyone beat me," Shi vowed to herself as she ran at Todd.

The redhead braced himself for an upfront attack, but Shi vanished before she got to him. He moved slightly to the side and put his hand up to block another punch from behind. He then turned around into a spinning kick, which she caught. She pushed his leg to the side, only for him to come at her with the other leg. She blocked that one and forced it down too. Todd lost his balance, which was a risk with his attack that he was well aware of, and stumbled to the floor.

"You see? You can't beat me," Shi declared as she came over to Todd and was about to pound his chest in with a heavy drop of her fists.

Todd rolled out of the way and spun to his feet. He leaped at Shi while she was still recovering from missing him. He was coming in for another kick, but she jumped back, causing him to miss. Shi decided to up her effort before he managed to actually hit her, so as soon as she touched down, she went at him again as he was landing also. She thought that she would have a small opening to take him out with, but he caught her fists.

"Spin her, Smiley!" Jayden said as soon as she saw that her brother had his opponent.

Todd grinned at Shi, who wondered what deviltry he had up his sleeves. He then started to spin, really, really fast. Shi let out a rather undignified shriek as he continued going; he spun the kids like that all the time, even though everyone said that they did not need to be any dizzier than they already were. It turned out that Shi did not like it nearly as much as his little fan club did.

The kids laughed when Todd released Shi and the bald ninja stumbled around the hardwood, hoping that the room would stop spinning. She closed her eyes and held her head, praying that would get the spell to pass. She looked like she was going to be sick. She eventually dropped to her knees and just tried to catch her breath.

"That looked really fun," Aztek commented. It had to be fun because Shi looked on the verge of throwing up, which to him translated into a good time.

"Yeah, he doesn't spin us that good," Romah agreed. He did not think that he ever looked as sick as Shi did from being spun around, so to him, it meant that her spin was way better.

"Keep going, Smiley! Don't let her get up!" Mayah said. She noticed that Todd was not going in for finishing moves when he had the chance, which she thought was weird.

"He's going to let up," Jayden informed her friend.

"Why?" Mayah inquired. She did not like the show of mercy to a girl that wanted to hurt her Todd.

"It's just a friendly fight," Jayden answered with a shrug. In a sparring match, she and her brother did not typically go in to hurt people…at least not people that they did not know very well. Sure, they wanted to live up to their mothers' legacies and prove to be incredible fighters, but Kim always told them that proving their worth could not be measured in opponent injuries. She also told them that sometimes it took the bigger person to be merciful. Shego sort of backed that up by just telling their kids to never do something that they might later regret in order to soundly win a fight.

"So?" Mayah asked in a confused voice.

Jayden just shrugged. She knew that there were some things that she believed in that Mayah could not comprehend. Mayah had a mean-streak in her first of all and she also had the belief in her that she should force people to submit to her if need be. Mayah would make people subscribe to her will through whatever means she could, which was something that she did inherit from her mother. They usually did not have to hurt a person for it to happen either, but they were prepared to go that far if it was necessary.

Shi climbed to her feet, legs still shaky from the twirl that Todd had just sent her on. It seemed like the more that she fought him, the more he embarrassed her. And then she turned her attention to him to see that he was grinning at her. Okay, she was going to have to seriously crush him now…well, as soon as her legs felt like they would work right.

"How about we call it a tie?" Todd suggested, still doing his nickname justice.

"Filthy swine," Shi berated him. "I don't tie with filth."

"Hey, baldy, he's not filthy! You dizzy cow!" Mayah barked at the ninja girl.

"Shi better be careful or she'll have to face the wrath of the future Missus Smiley," Ron remarked, earning some chuckles from his wife and Isabel.

"That's not funny!" Todd balked, turning his attention away from his opponent to look over at his grandmother and the ninja couple.

"Umm…Smiles…" Yori pointed ahead of him.

Todd turned around just in time to see Shi blazing toward him. He reacted much too slowly and she grabbed him by the shirt. He gulped because he did not have a way to break her hold without seriously injuring her. It would seem that he was just going to have to take the punishment coming to him.

Shi lifted Todd off of his feet by spinning them both; she turned on her heel. She went around a couple of times before releasing the redhead at a phenomenal speed, pitching him over her shoulder. Everyone got out of the way as the near-giant rocketed toward them. Todd ended up going through the thin, wooden wall of the building and landing several yards away on his back. He stayed laid out, staring at the sky, wondering what the hell just hit him.

"He lost," Jayden said in disbelief with a crestfallen expression. She would sooner believe the world was coming to an end than what she had just witnessed.

"He actually lost…" Bokuden muttered, confusion all over his face, which was the look all of his friends were sporting.

The kids were the first ones out of the building running toward Todd. When they got to him, their reaction surprised him and the adults that they were with. They thought the kids would express concern for the teen, but for the guy that they looked at as almost a superman, they had nothing but disappointment.

"How could you lose!" Nobunaga demanded to know as if Todd had insulted him with such behavior.

"What the hell is the matter with you? Mom and Mommy didn't raise us to be losers and you promised to be as good as them! You think they woulda lost that?" Jayden demanded to know, going so far as to punch her brother in the chest as she spoke and she knew that it hurt, but she pressed on because his loss hurt her. She appeared on the verge of tears while screaming at him. "What the fuck, weird brother!"

"Smiles, you're supposed to be the best," Bokuden said, still appearing utterly bewildered by what just happened.

"Wow, you suck," Aztek said rather seriously, making sure to peer into Todd's eyes as he spoke. He spoke as if he was amazed that such a thing was true. The world had been turned upside down for all of them.

"All right, you guys. That's enough," Isabel barked at the crew while pulling her group away from Todd. Yori got her boys away from him. Isabel and Ron looked at each other, trying to decide without words which one of them were going to have to pick up the pieces of Todd's shattered ego.

"I can field this one. I know a lot about losing, after all," Ron volunteered. He knew a lot about losing, but nothing about having people that thought the world of him seem completely and totally disappointed like with the kids and Todd.

Isabel nodded and walked off with her decided brats. They were going to get a stern lecture from her thanks to their behavior with Todd, especially Jayden. She was also going to let them know that they did not know everything, despite how intelligent they were, so they did not have a right to judge Todd off of one fight. Yori followed behind her, planning a similar talk with her sons. Ron sat down next to Todd and looked at the boy.

"Strong one, isn't she?" Ron commented, speaking to the redhead.

"Scary really," Todd said.

"Well, for you since I don't think she likes you much," the blonde said. Actually, most people would probably find Shi to be scary; he knew that she kind of gave him the creeps and he knew the reason why she was the way that she was.

"Yeah."

"Just imagine how pissed she's going to be when she figures out that was a fluke from you not doing your best," Ron said.

"You think she will?" the teen asked curiously.

"Well, let's just say she's not stupid. So, what was the plan here?" Ron inquired. He knew that in a real fight, Todd would not have allowed himself to be so easily distracted and he would have made a better effort than what he did in the match.

"I was just trying to have some fun. It was only a sparring match and I'm not interested in hurting someone in a sparring match, just not getting hurt myself. I mean, she wasn't a real threat. I've seen real threats," Todd replied with a serious look in his bright jade eyes, thinking of Gil.

No, Shi was nothing like Gil, so he did not need to try to harm her, even if she was going after him with a vengeance, Todd figured. A sparring match was something different than a real fight to him and maybe even to her because while going at it with her, he knew that she could have truly injured him, but she did not take that opportunity. It was only a sparring contest, nothing ultimately serious.

"Well, kiddo, I've seen real threats too. I think I would've done the same as you in this situation, but I gotta say, Shi is going to be pissed and I think going through that wall is going to be the least of your worries," Ron commented with a small smile.

"This is going to be a painful stay, isn't it?" the redhead inquired with a sigh.

"Yup." Ron patted Todd on the shoulder. "You okay with the kidlings turning on you?" he asked with some concern, even though he suspected that he knew the answer to that. Todd was a sensitive kid after all.

"Kinda hurts a lot actually, way more than going through that wall, but I know they get ahead of themselves sometime. Maybe they'll be all right with it tomorrow." Or so Todd hoped. As much as he wondered why they thought he could do everything, he would rather they believe that instead of being so utterly disappointed in him.

"I'm sure they'll be back to thinking you're Ultra-Smiley soon enough. One loss can't cut into a lifetime of hero-worship."

Todd smiled because of the words; they did give him hope because they rang so true since he knew how hero-worship was. "Thanks for that, Uncle Ron."

"No problem. Oh, and lemme give you a little tip while we're here."

"What, how to avoid Shi?" the redhead asked with more hope.

"No, I think you're gonna hafta deal with that one. You might want to keep an eye on Jade, though. Around these parts, the elder sibling is responsible for the younger to the extreme."

"Meaning?"

"When Jade does something wrong, both of you get punished," Ron explained.

Lime green eyes with wide with worry. "I should've let Shi kill me," Todd realized.

"You still might get the chance," Ron commented while glancing behind them to see the bald shinobi standing a couple of yards away from them.

"Oh, great. Does she look mad or satisfied?" Todd asked since he was still lying down and could not see what was going on behind him. If she looked mad, then she realized that he had not been working to the best of his ability and she was probably going to want a rematch.

Ron took a moment to get a good look at the girl. "Ah, she doesn't look mad, but she doesn't look satisfied either."

"Uncle Ron, could you just snap my neck for me now?" the teenager requested with a grin.

"And have to deal with your She-she later on?" Ron chuckled. "You're on your own, kid. Take a breath, gather yourself, and try to enjoy yourself for a while before going to talk to the kids."

Todd nodded and Ron got up. The teen remained on his back for a little while longer, waiting to find out what Shi was planning to do. The girl approached him and looked down at him. She smirked like a succubus that spotted a meal.

"Pathetic," she practically spat down at him.

Todd only grinned. It would seem that he was disappointing a lot of people in one day. The disappointment did not last long in the kids, though. The first to forgive him was Mayah, which he expected, even though it was creepy. She forgave him that day, actually. The others, it took a couple of days to forgive him, although they did not forget the fact that he lost and they did use it to make fun of him. Before long, Jayden was the only one still upset with him.

----(New day)

Jayden was trying to take Todd's head off and it was clear to him and to their grandmother. They were getting in their usual practice, which always ended with the siblings fighting. The sparring match was for Jayden's benefit rather than Todd's of course, but the exercise was good for him too. Isabel was watching them and critiquing them as went through things. At the moment, she was trying to remind Jayden not to let her anger rule her as she fought, but Jayden was pissed, as she had been for days.

"How could you lose!" Jayden hollered at her brother as he blocked her leg.

"It was just a friendly match," he pointed out with a grunt as he pushed her back.

"So! You should still fucking win!" she informed him as she bolted back at him. Unlike her brother, she only used their mothers' styles when she fought, adding to those whenever a move came to mind. She was already showing signs of moving just like them, but she was also showing signs of letting her anger cloud her mind, like her Mommy did at times.

"It wasn't that important," he replied and he managed to pin her, much to her frustration.

"It's always important! We can't be weaklings, Smiles. We can't," she muttered, turning her head to avoid looking at her brother. It was almost like she was ashamed of him.

"Monster…" Todd said, trailing off because no other words were coming to mind. He was not sure what to say. He agreed with her a hundred percent.

"Jade, it's not weak to lose a fight," Isabel said in a gentle voice. "Your mothers lose to each other all the time. I used to beat your Mommy when she was Smiley's age. Strength isn't measured in victories. Strength is coming through when it counts through sheer force of will. Smiley does that all the time. You have to give him credit for that."

Jayden sighed and took in her grandmother's words. She turned to look at her brother. She suddenly looked like she wanted to cry. It was not because she thought that he was weak for his loss like before, but it was more like she was upset to find out that he had not become invincible. Out of all of their training, their desire to get better, their need to become great, he was still able to be beaten by one person. It was almost like all their work was for nothing and they would never move forward.

"As strong as you are, you're still not like Mommy or Mom," Jayden pointed out, sounding crushed by that. If he was not good yet, how long would it take? Would they ever be _that_ good?

"I know," Todd admitted. The same questions that currently plagued his sister bothered him all of the time.

"Give yourselves time. You're seventeen and ten for crying out loud. Do you think that Shego and Kim were masters at that age?" Isabel inquired, knowing full well what Shego was capable at those ages. She doubted that Kim had mastered any of her kung-fu forms by the time that she was seventeen considering how many other things she did with her life.

The siblings looked at her and shook their heads as response. She nodded and told them to give themselves time again. She also told them to not measure themselves against their mothers. They had to be their own fighters, which she believed Todd knew deep down and that was why he also practiced Tae Kwan Do along with the kung-fu styles Kim and Shego taught them.

"You two are marvelous fighters already and you're only going to get better. You're going to be beyond words," Isabel promised them.

The two grinned; their grandmother's words held a lot of weight and value to them. So, they believed her. Todd let Jayden up and she hugged her brother, which was something that she never had any problem doing, no matter how tough she acted. He returned the embrace.

"Get better," Jayden ordered him in a low voice.

"You too," he replied.

--------------

Todd was out late at night, going through martial arts moves. It was something that he typically did when he did not have anything better to do, like read or work on models of prehistoric creatures. So far, his stay at Yamanouchi gave him plenty of time to work on his moves and he was enjoying the chance to refine his motions, especially when he got Isabel to instruct him. He was well aware that he was getting better already and they had not been there a week yet.

"You've got potential, outsider," Shi commented as she dropped down out of a tree right in front of him. She was speaking Japanese as usual.

"I've been told that," Todd replied with an easygoing smile.

Shi frowned; she hated that he smiled so much. She had seen him smile more in the five days that he had been there than any other person over the course of her life. He seemed so relaxed, even around her, someone who had delighted in defeating him and proving that he was worthless as a fighter. Although she noted that he had not taken the defeat as a proof of his worthlessness.

"Are the little ones still mad?" she asked curiously, not meaning to sound that way, but she did. She noticed how upset his little fan club had been with him for falling to her. She figured that they needed to accept everyone that she fought would fall to her.

"They got over it," Todd answered with a shrug. He was glad for that. He was also glad to not be the superman in their eyes anymore. It was a lot of pressure to be a superman, but he was already seeing signs that he might work his way back to that with them considering how hyped they were with him at breakfast to see how much he could eat. He beat Ron in an eating contest. It helped that he was all around bigger than Ron with higher metabolism because of his age and even with all of that working in his favor, he had barely won.

"Even the little one with black hair?" she inquired with an arched eyebrow.

"Jade's over it."

"You must be someone special to her. No one can ever hold that kind of anger at someone for losing if that wasn't the case," Shi commented.

"That's my little sister."

Shi nodded. "And why was she so mad? Do you never lose?"

"Well, actually I lose all time," he answered with a laugh. He lost to all of the adults in his life that did martial arts and he had lost to Gil last year; not to mention, he almost lost Jayden in that messy affair. He supposed the thing was that he did not lose to other people.

"Then why'd they swear you could beat me?" Shi inquired, a bit perplexed. Those kids had had a lot of faith in him and she knew that it was not misplaced or irrational, but she was confused on why they thought that he would be able to take her down after seeing her beat so many people and he lost often anyway.

"Maybe because I could," Todd answered, still grinning, but there was something more to his grin than usual. It was not some lopsided, goofy expression. There was a confidence in his expression which showed that he was definitely the son of Shego.

Shi frowned deeply. "Obviously not."

"The reason you're here, the reason you've been stalking me is because you know I could," Todd pointed out.

Shi stiffened at his words. She had been following him since his arrival for the most part after their fight and she really was not sure what to make of what she was seeing. He sparred on par with her peers, taking them on with an ease that she knew quite well. She watched him practice when he was just with his little sister and his grandmother and she could tell that she had not fought him at the top of his game.

"So…you gonna fight me to the death now?" Todd asked curiously. He figured that he had to have insulted her quite a bit for not taking the fight as seriously as she had been doing it.

"Not if you fight me properly, outsider," Shi replied honestly, although she was angry enough with him to want to kick his chest in. She was sure that if she came at him with a murderous intent, he would respect her desire to battle, but she doubted that she would be able to go at him with such a force over a sparring match.

Todd seemed to consider it. Before he could answer, Mayah trotted over. Todd looked down at her curiously while she eyed Shi with some disdain. The little girl wondered what that hairless cow was doing outside late at night with Todd, but she did not ask that.

"What's up, Mayah? How come you're not in bed?" Todd asked curiously.

"You have to come and shut Jade and Razi up. They're having one of those stupid ass science arguments and keeping me and Chyna up," Mayah answered.

"Okay," Todd replied and then he turned his attention back to Shi. "Well, I got some big brother junk to handle, but I'll take you up on your proposal. C'mon, Mayah. Let's see if it's possible to mend the fabric of reality this time," he remarked and he strolled off with the little girl.

Mayah glared at Shi as she left with Todd. Shi had never seen such a look of pure venom before and it was shocking coming from one so young. She wondered why the girl would look at her in such a way, but she did not think about it too much since Todd had taken her up on her offer. She wondered when they were going to get to fighting, so she decided to find out. She ambushed Todd in his sleep, which scared the hell out of him when he woke up to find her sitting on his stomach.

"Okay, this is creepy," Todd commented in English, which Shi did not understand.

"What?" she inquired, speaking her native language.

"Nothing. Um…why are you in my room?" he countered curiously, switching back to her mother tongue. He glanced over to his right where Aztek and Romah were knocked out on one futon. They slept how they lived, like mad men, both spread out with their covers bunched up, barely on them.

"Fight me now," she ordered.

"It's the middle of the night," he pointed out.

"I don't sleep much. So, get up and fight me now."

Todd shrugged, knowing that it would be best to just do what she said or he was going to have to be bothered by her until he did fight her. He moved to show that he was going to sit up, which silently told her to get off of him. He climbed to his feet, revealing that he was sleeping in nothing but a pair of boxers. Shi blushed when she saw, her whole head turned red, but Todd did not notice because he was hunting for some pants and his eyes had not totally adjusted to the dark anyway.

Todd wandered across some jean shorts that he threw on and he followed her out of the room without waking the sleeping brothers. They went right outside and she put her hands up to fight. Todd shrugged and got into his stance.

They stared each other down for a moment, mostly giving Todd a chance to wake up fully and for his eyes to adjust to the night. Shi took the time to look at him without a shirt on and only now could she appreciate his stance and how powerful it was. His body itself looked like the very definition of power and she got to see that he was not some annoying outsider that thought of martial arts as entertainment or something demeaning like that. He looked like a warrior…until he started grinning anyway, which was his way of saying that he was ready to fight.

Shi went at him and they got into what looked like a violent, but graceful dance. Todd took the battle much more seriously now because it actually felt more like a friendly match than that first one. It was not some pointless battle to him like before, but an exercise to become better like everything else he had done there.

The air of the battle was not the only thing that was different. Shi was now made even more aware of Todd's body as they brushed up against each other and she was not aware of it like a warrior, but as a teenage girl. She tried her best to ignore it and stay focused on the righteous combat that they had going.

They lost themselves in the fight and failed to notice the approach of dawn. They only stopped when they saw that they had an audience and at the forefront of that was Todd's little fan club, who were cheering for him again. When they stopped, the teens looked at each other and Todd smiled. Shi returned the expression halfway and it was there that they respected each other. Mayah did not like that one bit.

--------------

Next time: what the parents are up to while the kids go wild at Yamanouchi.


	40. Reason Forty: Fun

I don't own these characters. I don't own the premise that this saga is based on. I do own: Isabel, Todd, Jayden, Raziya, Mayah, Aztek, Romah, Chyna, Bokuden, Nobunaga, and Shi.

Reason Forty: Fun

_Free time needs to be taken advantage of._

Shego sighed as she closed the folder in her hands and walked toward her office, which was just down the hall. She had just left Betty's office, gathering up documents that she required. Betty was not in the building at the moment, so if Shego needed anything from the boss' office, she had to go get herself. She required the names and files of agents looking to take her course and those had been in Betty's desk.

Shego would not admit it out loud, but she liked her new job, even though it cut into her field time. Training handpicked agents to think like thieves was more interesting than it sounded and she had a lot of competent pupils. Sometimes, she got Dahntay to come in and they would go through things to show how different people used different styles in burglary just like anywhere else.

The problem that Shego had with her new job was that it had to do with the level of paperwork. Why did everything have to be so thoroughly documented? Did someone actually sit around reading such crap? She doubted it and she did not see why she had to waste her time writing something that no one was going to read. Things did not help that she typically put off the paperwork until Betty was breathing fire down her neck for it, which just meant that she had tons of crap to do.

She entered her office, which was rather spacious; not as big as Betty's, but it was big enough. It even had a view, which was also not as good as Betty's, but it was enough for the moment. She had the walls painted a mint green to match the carpet that she had put down. There was a black desk in the back with a black leather chair. On her desk, she had several pictures; one from her and Kim's wedding, one with her, Kim, and Todd when he was younger on a Christmas day, one of the family with Jayden as a baby, and a recent one from their trip to the jungle with Kim and their kids looking dirty and happy. She finally understood pictures because looking upon them brought her such joy and she could not fathom why, but she welcomed it all the time.

The pale woman took her seat and started flipping through the folder again. She was looking at the next lot of agents scheduled to take her course. She was about to start eliminating people, as she never took all of the officers that were picked for the class, when her phone rang. She answered it and a slow smile began to creep onto her face; it would seem that she was going to have some action for the day.

She wasted no time running out of the headquarters after she changed into her old uniform. She did not get to wear the green and black catsuit as much as she used to; she unfortunately found out that each time she put it on now that it was a little tighter than she recalled. At least it did not seem to be an affront to the public when she went out in it, she thought. She liked to think that she still looked damn sexy, which was something that her wife would backup…probably while drooling a puddle over Shego being in the one-piece, skin-tight suit.

The green-skinned officer was glad to find out that she could still move like she did when she first took her job; okay, sometimes she thought about her age just as much as Betty now that she was getting up there in years. But, she was doing all right, chasing after one disgusting villain; he was a hairy man that could grow his hair any length and he could control his hair like a limb or a bunch of independent limbs. It would not have been so bad if it was just the hair on his head, but it was all the hair on his body. When she caught up with him, he had grabbed her with his arm hair, which she immediately slashed through with her claws while feeling ill for a moment when she saw what was holding her.

The villain was not bothered by her cutting through his hair and just attacked her with the charcoal-colored mane on his head. His hair hit her like a truck in the stomach. She skidded back, being stopped only by a car, which she smashed on impact and then she tipped the vehicle over. The villain laughed, smirking wickedly while doing so as he reeled his hair back in.

"Wow, that actually stings a little," Shego remarked with a laugh as she stood up. It was good to know that she could still take a hit, not that she had any doubts.

The tall, tanned outlaw balked when he saw Shego charging at him with her hands flaring emerald green. He used his hair to block her attacks, but she just cut through the strands with ease. He gulped while backing up as her attacks were getting closer to his body and the air was filled with the smell of burnt hair. He backed himself up into a wall.

"Give up?" Shego inquired with an arrogant smirk on her face while holding up her claws in a threatening manner.

"Hell, no!" he barked and his hair attacked again.

Shego sucked her teeth while cutting through his mane again along with the hair on his arms and his mustache. She growled in anger while ducking and dodging any of his attacks that she was not able to cut through. She then surprisingly leaped at him, punching him clean on the jaw because he was not properly protecting his face. The blow pushed him back against the wall that he had been against before. She had hit him so hard that his body cracked the stone of the building behind him. He was unconscious before he hit the ground.

"I guess I still got it," Shego commented proudly with a bit of a laugh.

--------------

Todd was walking out of one of the buildings in the Yamanouchi School with Ron and Yori. They were going back and forth about the sparring that Todd had just got in. The redhead really surprised the couple because he was phenomenal as a fighter. Of course, he had always been good, but now, he seemed like a whole new person. They did not know that he was trying his best to live up to the legacy of his parents and that he had been working hard to do that. They just knew that he was amazing; well, they knew that and that his style had caught the attention of a certain bald, antisocial kunoichi (female ninja) of the school. They had taken notice that Shi seemed to be intrigued with Todd at the very least.

It was hard for anyone not to notice Shi's interest in Todd as she seemed to go out of her way to find him. She seemed to be trying her best not to be blatant about things, but with the way that she treated everyone else and tried not to interact with people unless she was beating them up, it was too obvious. Sure, she barked on Todd and tried to look angry with being near him, but she was near him and it was not his doing.

The trio's talk was interrupted when an explosion sounded through the whole school. They all turned to look in the direction of the noise to see a column of grey smoke rising into the sky. They sighed.

"The kids," Yori muttered while shaking her head.

"Does that look like mechanical smoke?" Ron asked; it would narrow it down to what happened if they knew the cause. Mechanical smoke meant that Jayden and Raziya had done something nine times out of ten.

"No, that's chemical," Todd replied. He knew that he should not know the difference between smoke, but living with Jayden, one got to know the difference between when a machine blew up and when an explosion was caused by a chemical reaction.

"That would explain the smell," Ron remarked.

The three took off toward the smoke and they got there just in time to see Jayden, Bokuden, Mayah, and Raziya stumbling out of a building that now had a skylight. The kids collapsed on the ground when they were out and lay on their backs while sucking in as much fresh air as they could. It was never a dull moment with those guys.

"I told you that wasn't the right mixture!" Raziya complained with a cough.

"Well, what the hell do you know about mixing chemicals?" Jayden countered. It would be a very cold day in Hell when she, a semi-trained toxicologist thanks to her Mom's work, would listen to mechanical engineer, as she saw Raziya as being, when it came to mixing chemicals.

"More than you!" Raziya replied heatedly.

"Like fuck you do!" Jayden stated, taking serious offense there. She was certain that out of everyone in their group, she had natural sciences on lock and she did not want to hear otherwise.

"I don't get why it didn't work," Bokuden muttered, genuinely confused as to why they had caused an explosion, which was typical of him when they did such things. He was always so certain that they knew what they were doing, especially when he was deeply involved.

"What didn't work exactly?" his mother inquired while standing over him and not looking very pleased. He grinned nervously at her.

"Um…I was trying to show them how to make that special flash powder thing, but I couldn't get it right," Bokuden explained while looking as apologetic as possible with the hope that his expression would help save him.

"We tried to help," Jayden added in to show that it was not just Bokuden's fault that they blew the roof off of a building. Raziya and Mayah glared at her, obviously wanting her to amend that statement, which she did. "Okay, I mostly tried to help," the raven-haired girl admitted. She liked to think that Raziya had an equal hand in it considering how much she kept butting in, but Jayden had mostly ignored her input anyway.

"We're in trouble, aren't we?" Raziya asked with a bit of a pout, hoping that the expression would help get them out of trouble.

"You blew up a building," Ron answered.

"But, this wasn't the first time," Raziya pointed out.

"That only makes it worse," Todd stated with a sigh. He sighed because he was going to be getting punished right with them as he had already been told several times to keep an eye on Jayden considering the antics that she and her crew already had under their belt for their week at Yamanouchi.

Todd was punished right with the kids, as usual. They had the classic punishment of holding buckets of water with their arms parallel to the ground and also having to stare at a wall while doing it. The buckets for them had increased in size from the first couple of times that they had gotten in trouble. They had held small buckets the first time and they looked at it as a joke and nothing more, so the teachers around Yamanouchi just increased the size and the amount of water in the buckets, which their guardians were all okay with; as long as the kids were not being tortured in some way, their guardians were all right with them being punished when they did something wrong. The troublemakers were also placed several feet away from each other with the intent to keep them from talking; it was not known to work out that way with that lot.

"Way to go, Jade," Mayah grumbled while making sure to keep her buckets steady because if any water dropped out, she would just get into more trouble.

"I wonder what would've happened if we did less powder?" Jayden mused aloud, tuning Mayah out for the most part. She had two buckets in hand, but also one on her head, which was an addition suggested by her own grandmother. Isabel thought that Jayden would appreciate the challenge of having to keep the bucket balanced on her head, knowing that it would help make her better in her martial arts. Isabel just hoped that it would also get Jayden thinking about what would happen the next time she blew something up.

"Probably just less of an explosion," Bokuden remarked, also sporting a bucket on his head as well as in his hands. The one on his head came from an earlier punishment and Jayden daring him to do it too. Most might think he gave into peer pressure because of that, but had anyone else suggested it, he would not have taken them up on the dare.

"It probably wouldn't've sparked like that," Raziya added in. She just had the buckets in her hands. Like everyone else, she was holding them with ease. In fact, she was ready to suggest that they start giving out better punishments because the one going on now certainly was not going to deter them from doing stuff when they were curious about something.

While the kids tried to figure out where they went wrong in their little "science project," Todd stood further away from them. He had large buckets in his hands and he was ready to nod off from staring at the wall, but suddenly he had something to pay attention to. Or at least, someone.

"In trouble again?" Shi commented as she came to stand near Todd, but away from the kids, who did not like her very much mostly because of her first victory against Todd. Other than that though, they would have sworn to the heavens that she was cool, but that would need time.

"I left her alone for ten minutes and this is what I get," Todd replied with a nonchalant shrug.

Shi nodded, knowing that he was referring to his little sister as she was the reason that Todd got punished almost hourly. The little ones did intrigue her; they seemed like such whirlwinds. She liked that Todd tried to look out for them, but she never said that aloud. She also thought it was a bit cute for them to look up to Todd as they did; they were already getting back into the mind set that he was invincible because he had been wiping the floor with ninja pupils since he had arrived.

Shi did not say anything else for the few seconds that she stood there with Todd. She suddenly had the habit of staring at him and she did not understand it much. She liked looking at his body and it was just something that was beyond her. She thought that if it continued, she might have to ask someone about it. After eyeing his thick, muscular arms, she walked off, keeping her cool for the most part.

Todd was not sure what to make of Shi. He was not sure if she wanted to kill him or kiss him anymore. He would not mind the latter, but the former did worry him. After all, he had been told that all she lived for was fighting, so he was a bit worried that she did still just want to kick his head off of his shoulders, even though she seemed a bit friendly toward him now. Hey, she was a ninja; she might be using a ploy against him now that she knew he could pose a better challenge than their first fight proved.

Mayah noticed Shi giving Todd a lot of attention, which she did not like. She wished that she could just go beat the bald teenager up, but she knew that was unrealistic considering the fact that Shi had beaten Todd. She was not too sure what she was going to do about the teen, but she knew that she was going to have to do something. Maybe Jayden would help, she thought.

--------------

"Hey, babe, you all right?" Felix asked as he came in to find Monique laid out on the sofa in the living room. She had the television on, but she was not facing the television, which would explain why bowling was playing on the screen.

"I miss Razi," Monique grumbled into the leather of their couch. She was bored and she missed spending time with their daughter. Over the summer, she usually spent all day with their child, but that was not going to happen until Raziya got back at some undetermined time. She was in favor of never sending Raziya away with Isabel again, even though she knew that the girl was having a great time considering the fact that she called everyday with great enthusiasm in her voice. The only problem that Raziya had on the trip from what they could tell was expected, namely Aztek was getting on the girl's nerves.

"She'll be home soon," Felix replied in a gentle tone while moving over to the couch and sitting down there. He pulled his wife into his arms and held her gently against his strong chest.

"I know, but I want her back now," Monique complained with a cute little pout.

"So do I, but she's out having the time of her life and with the way Isabel acts, she may never come back," he remarked with a laugh.

"We shouldn't have agreed to this. I mean, she already lied and took Razi to Europe without even telling us," Monique mumbled. They would not have known that Raziya was in Italy over a week ago if Aztek had not been yakking in the background about what monument that he wanted to visit next, but once he gave it away, Raziya easily admitted to where she was.

"She's got to bring them back sometime. Smiles' has college to start worrying about and Jade has school. I doubt she's going to make her grandkids miss school."

"Baby, school is over a month away. I don't want her keeping Razi for a whole month. I want our baby back. I need something to do," Monique declared. Over the summer, she and Raziya bonded over art and clothes. It kept Raziya from turning completely into a cybernetic fanatic thanks to Felix.

"So…you can't do anything unless Razi's around? Is this what we've turned into?" Felix asked. He had to admit that he had been a little bored without Raziya around too, but now he just realized how horrible that was. They should be glad that they had time alone. They should be doing stuff, having fun, like their daughter was.

"Wow…" Monique muttered as she realized the same thing her husband did.

"Yeah, get up, get dressed, and we're going out," Felix said as if there was nothing else for them to do.

"Good idea," she agreed while standing up. They were going to go out on the town while they had the chance. And if Felix had his way, they were going to spend a great deal of the night having some very loud sex.

--------------

Out of all of the kids that Isabel had brought with her, Aztek was the hardest to keep track of and, really, she did not try to; in fact, the only one out of her group that Isabel kept with her was Chyna. Aztek was going to do what he did regardless of the fact if someone was watching him or not. Isabel probably would have tried to keep an eye on him, but Aztek was so easily distracted that she just hoped that he was distracted from doing one bad thing by another and so forth and so on without him having a chance to actually get to anything. The little boys that really needed watching since they were together were Nobunaga and Romah. Now, those were a crazy pair.

Without Nobunaga, Romah was a rather low-key little fellow. He preferred watching his siblings and friends do insane things rather than getting into the thick of things. It had a little do with the fact that he was quite smaller than they were. He noticed that they tended to do a lot of things that he did not quite understand and much of the time being able to keep up with them was something that was vital to being in the mix. So, for the moment, he was on the outside looking in when it came to them, but he was just the right size to get into things with Nobunaga.

The blonde boy was very interested in his ninja heritage, so he liked doing "ninja things," which was right up Romah's alley because he liked ninjas too, being a little boy and an aspiring martial artist in his own right. So, they basically liked sneaking around places, jumping off of things, and ambushing people, sometimes with weapons on hand; mostly they had bamboo swords because there was no way that anyone was letting them near a real blade.

At the moment, the little pair were hiding underneath a desk, in Master Sensei's office no less. They had been told that they were forbidden from going in there, but that term typically just made things all the more tempting for them. It seemed like a bigger deal for them to sneak into some place when they were not supposed to go in there ever, at all; it was such an accomplishment to them.

Master Sensei entered his office, vaguely aware that he was not alone. He looked around, but did not see anything out of the ordinary. Chocolate and onyx eyes followed ankles from one side of the desk to the other. Master Sensei could not shake the feeling that he was not alone and looked around again. He did not see anything still, but was bothered by the sense of a presence. He was about to get to some paperwork, but then had the presence of mind to check underneath his desk. There was nothing there.

"Must be my imagination," the aging martial artist commented to the air with a shrug.

The master ninja pulled his wooden chair up to his dark oak desk. He picked up his pen and proceeded through the boring task of being an administrator. Minutes past before a couple of battle cries shattered the peaceful silence of the office. Master Sensei whipped around to see to little boys coming at him with fierce looks on their faces, appearing ready to do some damage with their shinai (bamboo swords) in hand.

"I finally got you!" Nobunaga prematurely celebrated.

Master Sensei barely moved to catch both boys, holding one in each hand. The duo exchanged looks as if asking "how the fuck did that just happen?" Neither had an answer for the other and so they just decided to loudly protest their capture, making sure that their faces showed their resentment.

"Let us go!" Nobunaga commanded in a voice that was rather unbecoming for a child his age. He sounded like an adult when he made demands.

"Yeah, unhand us!" Romah chimed in, drawing his vocabulary from being around the older kids and their peculiar speech patterns. His voice was also rather commanding for someone so young, not to mention someone usually so quiet and seemingly laidback. It would seem that his mother shone through him as brightly as she did in Mayah under the right circumstances.

"And why would I do that with such disobedient students?" Master Sensei inquired, although he had to admit that they were good for kids their age. He already suspected that Nobunaga was going to be the better fighter out of him and his brother, although he also suspected that Bokuden would be a better all-around warrior for the simple fact that Bokuden looked before leaped and had a habit of weighing the consequences of his actions…unless he was with those little girls that he liked to hang out with, Master Sensei noted.

"Because we said so," Nobunaga pointed out.

"I'd rather not. Come on, you two, you know where you're going," Master Sensei said and he took them to their own little private corner where they got to stare at the wall while holding small pails of water in their hands.

Master Sensei had noticed that the punishment did not seem to be deterring any of the kids' behavior, so he was starting to think that they were going to have to come up with something extra-special for that lot. He figured that he would talk it out with Isabel, Yori, and Ron right now. He did not bother to go find Bokuden and punish him, as the rules called for, because Bokuden was already being punished and he knew that. Yes, they were definitely going to have to think of some kind super-punishment for that lot.

--------------

Kim was buried in a book when her "Shego-sense" went off; she could hear the pale woman pulling into the driveway. She was sitting on the sofa with her legs curled up to her sides in comfortable house clothes of skimpy shorts and a camisole when she knew that she had to get up and pounce her mate as she came through the door. She shot up and was hugging her wife around the waist before Shego was completely inside the house. She was surprised when her green-skinned spouse hissed in pain from the contact.

"What happened, honey? I didn't squeeze you that tightly," Kim commented while looking up at Shego with some concern in her olive eyes.

"You didn't. I'm just a little sore," Shego admitted, much to her chagrin. She could not believe that her little activity that afternoon had actually left her feeling just a bit achy.

"Sore? Why? What happened?" Kim asked in a worried tone.

"It's nothing," Shego dismissed her pain with a flick of her hand. She did not think that it was fair that she was hurting as much as she was over one hit into a car. Was she really getting that old? No, it could not be that. It had to be from a couple of weeks of inactivity, she silently decided.

"Well, how about I draw us a bath and you let me work that soreness right out of you?" the redhead suggested with a devilish smirk on her face while caressing her love's hips.

"You are a dear, aren't you?" Shego inquired in a teasingly perky voice.

"You know I am," Kim replied, still smirking and looking like quite the imp to her wife. She leaned forward and placed a gentle peck on Shego's lips for no real reason other than she wanted to.

"Let me take a shower and then we'll have that bath, okay?"

"Spanking," Kim agreed with a grin. The redhead was obviously looking to take advantage of having the house to themselves.

Shego was of similar thinking to her spouse since it was hard for them to have any real quality time together unless it was late at night considering the kids that they had. Todd and Jayden never seemed to run out of energy and they always wanted to be doing something, so they ran their mothers around, not that Kim minded since she seemed to like to always being doing something too. Shego liked to relax every now and then, but she guessed that she was the only one in the family that truly thought about doing such a thing. Everyone else did think of relaxing, but only when there was nothing else to do it seemed.

The pale woman took a quick shower and ran a bath for herself and Kim, calling the petite scientist when everything was ready. Kim was rather surprised to race upstairs and find scented candles lit and bubbles in the tub along with a very naked Shego. Kim was going to complain because she wanted to do everything, but as usual, once she caught sight of her spouse nude, most thoughts left her mind. The one thing still on her brain was touching that lovely body that was bare to her.

Shego smiled to herself because of Kim's quite expected reaction. If she ever got down on herself about getting older for whatever reason, Kim made her feel better instantly without even realizing it. The redhead of course would have felt very proud to know that she made the love of her life feel beyond words just from a look, but Shego never brought it up because she did not want it to be known that she was starting to think about such things. Going into middle-aged sucked, Shego thought, but as long as Kim always looked at her as she was now, as if Shego was not only the sexiest woman alive, but also the sun of Kim's world, everything would be all right.

"Hey, you gonna stand there looking like a fish with your mouth open like that or get the hell in here with me?" Shego asked, teasing her awe-struck lover.

"Yeah, right," Kim scoffed and quickly joined her wife in the hot bathtub. She was about to start a massage since the emerald-eyed woman had complained of soreness earlier, but Shego actually beat her to it. "Hey!" the redhead protested, moving away from her love.

"Come back here, you evil imp," Shego said while yanking the slender hero back to her.

"You're doing everything I wanted to do!" Kim whined.

"So, sit back and relax for once. Let me take care of you, Princess," Shego said, the last sentence was whispered into Kim's ear while she was being pressed against her spouse.

Kim hesitated, but conceded in a moment as Shego knew she would. They had a particularly fun time in the bath and continued on in their bedroom, taking full advantage of having the house to themselves beyond the fact that they left the door open. The noise level alone was much more than anything that they would have been able to get away with if they did not have the house to themselves.

When they were both spent, Shego more so than Kim as usual, they rested. The redhead made herself comfortable on top of her spouse, seeking heat as well as relaxing; she needed heat because Shego had turned on the air condition as she was overheating. They lay their stark nude, the raven-haired agent caressing the small of her wife's back. Every now and then, her hand strayed a bit lower, but the redhead certainly was not going to complain about it.

"Hey, Pumpkin," Shego said after a long, tranquil silence hung between them.

"Yeah?" Kim asked in a slightly sleepy tone. She was not particularly tired, but she was comfortable enough to take a little nap where she was and then wake up to rock Shego's world again.

"Want to go away for a little while?"

"Away?" Kim echoed in a puzzled tone.

"On a little getaway while we don't have anything to worry about," Shego explained a bit better.

"You know I don't care as long as I'm with you," Kim answered while snuggling into her spouse wonderfully warm body.

Shego smiled. "Well, we're going to go away for the week before the demons get back."

"A week? I guess I can get off for the week."

"And so you shall," the pale woman remarked.

"Betty'll let you go?" Kim asked curiously.

Shego scoffed. "She won't even know until we're gone. She's on vacation her damn self."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, her and Falsetto took off a couple of days ago, claiming they're going to a dog show, but I don't think a dog show requires ten days of your time. So, we're going to be gone by the time she finds out and I don't really care about what she'll have to say when we get back," Shego declared honestly. Betty could scream her heart out when Shego got back, but the green-skinned woman knew that she would be too mellow when she got back to give a damn about what her boss was hollering about.

"Well then, let's go!" Kim grinned. Oh, she loved it when they took impulsive trips.

--------------

Shi decided that she was going to have to go talk to someone since her odd behavior was continuing and she was quite aware that her actions were peculiar. The latest weird thing that she had done was staring at Todd during dinner. The whole school had dinner in cafeteria-type area. She sat by herself, which was the way that she preferred things, but she had not eaten much, watching Todd while he was eating and smiling. She had come to like his smile now. She could not believe that change since it had only taken a few days for that to happen. Well, she went to talk to the only person that she trusted enough to have a real conversation with.

"Yori-sensei," Shi said, sitting outside of the shoji that led to Yori's quarters.

"You may enter, Shi," Yori called.

Shi did not make a sound as she slid the shoji open and then entered the room. She slid the door closed and then looked around the small room for the other ninja. Yori was sitting at a low desk and writing a letter. Shi scanned the area to make sure that Ron was not around. She was not comfortable around the blonde, but then again, she was not really comfortable around anyone. She did not see any sign of Ron; he was out with Bokuden and Nobunaga, hoping to keep them out of trouble for a little while. Yori was trying to write her sister a letter while she had the spare moment.

"Yori-sensei, I was hoping I could talk to you," Shi said.

"You know you can," Yori replied while turning her attention to the teenage ninja, who came to sit near Yori.

"Um…the boy…your nephew…" Shi stammered and trailed off for a moment. She started fiddling with her hands, but did not seem to realize it.

"Smiley?" Yori asked. She guessed that Shi assumed Todd was her nephew since he did refer to her as "aunt."

"Yes…" Shi muttered and then she looked away, which was odd behavior for her. She usually eyed people directly when talking to them.

"What about him?" the older female inquired while taking in Shi's atypical behavior.

"He is…um…weird."

Yori smiled a bit; the expression was fond and proud. "That he is."

"He makes me…weird…" Shi admitted, still fidgeting with her hands.

"He makes you weird? How so?" the older warrior inquired.

"I don't know. I feel…weird. And I act weird. I mean… you know?" Shi asked because she was not sure how to explain herself. She was not sure what it all meant.

Yori chuckled a bit; she did know. "I think you like him, Shi."

"Like him? Well, I don't hate him like I did before. I mean, he's all right…" the bald girl conceded. She shrugged her shoulders awkwardly.

The elder female shook her head, slightly amused. "You like him. It's all right to like him. After all, you're sixteen, soon to be seventeen. It's expected."

"It's expected?" Shi echoed in a puzzled tone.

"Yes, you're a teenage girl and he's a rather impressive example of a teenage boy."

"But, there are plenty of teenage boys around here," Shi pointed out, still not comprehending what Yori was getting at.

"It's not the same thing. Smiles…well, he got your attention and you've noticed him differently than the other guys," Yori tried to explain.

Shi rubbed her head because of her confusion. "Differently?" she parroted in a perplexed tone.

"Yes, differently…romantically more than likely," Yori said. She thought it was cute that Shi's first crush was on Todd, but she would never say that to Shi because the teenage girl would only get offended because she did not see herself as cute in any way, shape, or form.

"Romantic…" Shi's light brown eyes wide with shock and realization. "You mean like how you like Ron-senpai?" she inquired in semi-panicked astonishment. She called Ron "senpai" since he was her senior, but that was about as much respect as she would give him; it was more than she would give any of her so-called "peers."

"Well, maybe not that much, but it could grow into that. What you have is called a 'crush.' You like Smiley, probably because he can offer you up a good match and now you're starting to like other things about him. It's all right for you to like him," Yori assured the girl, smiling to hopefully make the younger ninja more comfortable with her feelings.

"Umm…" Shi rubbed her head again; it was actually a nervous habit that she had. "What do I do?" she asked curiously.

"Try talking to him."

"I do…sometimes…"

"Do it more and try not to make fun of him the whole time. Just have a natural conversation with him, tell him about yourself and learn more about him," Yori suggested.

Shi nodded. "Yori-sensei…what if he doesn't like me?" she asked while squirming a bit from anxiety with that possibility.

Yori smiled a bit again. "You'll find it's quite hard to make Smiley not like you."

"What if he does like me?" Shi asked, even more nervous with that idea.

"Explore the possibility," Yori replied with a small, reassuring smile.

Shi was confused on that answer. Explore what possibility? She did not even understand the notion, but it made her nervous just echoing those words in her mind.

--------------

Next time: the fun in Japan comes to an end. There's also some heartbreak for Mayah.


	41. Reason Fortyone: Move ‘em out

I don't own these characters or the original premise that this saga was based on. I do own my usual crew of Isabel, Todd, Jayden, Mayah, Aztek, Bokuden, Raziya, Nobunaga, and Chyna.

Reason Forty-one: Move 'em out

_It's nice for them to be someone else's problem for a little while. But, you do miss them after a while._

Betty and Dahntay were smiling at each other from across a small table. They had champagne glasses in hand and were smiling at each other in a rather suggestive manner. They were enjoying their little getaway. It had started out with them going to a dog show, displaying Leonardo, even though the rare dog was getting rather old. They still bred him with other dogs too, but his breed was still quite a sight to see. The dog show was an excuse to just get away while their troop of maniacs was off with Isabel doing god-knew-what. For the summer, the kids were luckily Isabel's problem.

The couple was having a romantic evening for the first time in way too long a time. It was hard for them to get out because it was hard for them to talk people into taking their lot. Even Kim and Shego would sometimes back away in fear, as it was never a good idea to mix their offspring with Jayden anyway. Nothing good ever came from those kids meeting, there certainly was a lot of fights and broken items when they got together, which was one of the reasons that they did not like to watch Jayden much either. Dahntay liked to remark that he was sure Jayden and Mayah were like Shego and Betty when they were younger. Isabel corrected him, saying that more windows stayed intact when Betty and Shego were younger.

"This is wonderful," Betty commented with a small smile, a few wrinkles appeared, showing her age a bit.

"Only the best for you, my dear," Dahntay replied with a smile of his own.

Betty smiled more. Her husband had been spoiling her on the trip, spending money on her as if it was the in-thing to do. He had gotten her the most expensive treatment at a very exclusive spa, where they had taken to talking about her in French, mistakenly thinking that because her skin and body showed the signs of a working woman that she did not speak the language. She had listened for the most part as they had insulted almost every part of her and joked about her. Only after the treatment did Betty reveal that she knew what they had been saying and then Dahntay used his influence to get the most obnoxious of the employees, two of them specifically, fired on the spot. No one talked bad about his wife, especially because it was clear that she was hard-working and had saved countless lives.

The restaurant that they were eating in right now was the most expensive and exclusive in the city that they were staying in. Betty had scolded her husband at first for his spending, telling him that he needed to save their money for when their kids had to go to college. He made a joke that Mayah was not going to make it through college because she was going to be expelled from them all after fighting with Jayden too much and that Aztek was going to wander off when he was teenager and they would never have to worry about him again. She did not seem to find the remarks funny, so he just assured her that she was worrying too much and she needed to relax. Their kids' college funds were fine.

"You spent too much money on me," Betty said, even though she was thoroughly enjoying it.

"I need to spend it on someone. You're the best candidate, of course," Dahntay remarked with a charming smile.

Betty only smiled and decided to stop giving her husband a hard time. They enjoyed their meal and drinks before retiring to their hotel room. Once there, they did what they had been doing for the most part since they had been on vacation, having passionate, exceptionally wild sex. The activity was difficult for them to get into at home when their kids were around, even late at night when the kids were sleeping, so they were taking full advantage while they did not have anything to worry about. They did almost get thrown out of the hotel one night as they had taken their commotion outside onto the balcony with Betty sitting on the guardrail, despite the fact that they were over twenty stories in the air. They had attracted a lot of attention at the time, but they really had not cared. They were just making the most of their vacation and loving every second of it.

--------------

Jayden, Bokuden, Mayah, and Raziya were standing by a small, outside pool. There were medium-sized rocks around the tiny body of crystal clear water that was fed by a cool little waterfall. The rocks were like a low gate, just marking off the water. The four looked like they were plotting something, as if they had an idea of some kind and were trying to figure out how to go about it.

"Ah! You from get away from there!" Todd shouted as he dashed over, chasing the kids away before they had a chance to do anything. He was not in the mood to be punished again because of them.

The four ran off being chased by the teenage redhead. They glanced back to make sure that he was not gaining on them, which he was not attempting to do. He just wanted to get them away from that little spring as it was sacred water used to purify warriors at a certain stage in their development. The last thing he needed was for the little group to do something to that water, especially since he had been warned that there would be a new, harsher punishment dealt out than holding buckets of water and staring at a wall. He was not interested in finding out what that punishment was.

The group, except for Mayah, laughed as they ran, apparently taking Todd's outrage as a joke. Mayah did not like upsetting Todd, especially lately since she noticed that Shi had taken such an interest in him. Speaking of the bald female, Mayah noticed her off to the side.

Shi was watching Todd it seemed, which she had been doing a lot of lately. The hazel-eyed ninja wanted to talk to Todd as she had been instructed to do by Yori, but she was not sure how to go about the talking that her sensei meant. She could only say a couple of sentences to the redheaded boy, usually teasing him in someway. Yori told her to really talk to him and she was not sure how to go about that just yet, which was why she was shying away from Todd, but stalking him all the same.

Mayah frowned, hating the sight of Shi all the more every time that she saw the bald female. She was going to have to do something about Shi, she was certain of that. It seemed like a big job, so she was sure that she was going to have to get Jayden's help. She was pretty sure that Jayden would be on her side; after all, Jayden hated seeing girls get close to Todd as much as she did. But, before they got anything together, they were going to have to get Todd to stop chasing them.

With Todd running after the group of four, the spring was left undisturbed, or so it would seem. Aztek crawled out of a nearby bush. He was covered in dirt as expected with ants marching all over him. He would not have cared if only they were not biting him. He needed relief from the sting and noticed the water. He smiled wickedly to himself; he would teach those ants about biting him by drowning them! He leaped into the small pond of water with a howl and splashed loudly into the freezing cold water. He did not care about the temperature, as long as the ants got off of him. He then started entertaining himself by swimming around.

"Oh my god," Ron muttered as he noticed Aztek by chance. "Az, get outta that water!"

"Huh?" Aztek looked around when he heard his name called. He saw the blonde ninja marching toward him and he waved. "Hey, Uncle Ron!" he greeted the man with a beaming smile.

"Don't 'hey' me! Get outta the water right now," Ron commanded again with a stern expression on his face and then his eyes practically fell out of his head when he saw all of the mud and insects in the sacred water thanks to Aztek. Dear lord, the boy had polluted pond, a very serious offense considering the fact that it would take a year to purify the water again. These kids were too much, he thought with a sigh.

--------------

Kim and Shego were lounging on a beach with nearly pearl white sand. The sun was beaming down on them while they relaxed in comfortable beach chairs. There was only the soothing sound of the water meeting the shore echoing through the air. The area was empty, which was no surprise as they were staying at Isabel's beach house, so they were on privately owned land.

Kim was glad that Shego had suggested the little getaway, as they had been having a good time, even though they were mostly doing things that they could have done at home. It was just nice to get away, which might explain why they were both sporting small smiles. Shego made a mental note to schedule another trip as soon as they got rid of the kids again.

"Think we should call Isabel to see how the kids are doing?" Kim asked curiously, keeping her eyes closed as she spoke because it felt like such a bother to open them at the moment.

"She can handle them. She always does," Shego replied dismissively. She had on a pair of sunglasses and her eyes were out of sight, but they were closed too. A book lay next to her, abandoned some time ago.

"The drill sergeant," Kim remarked with a laugh.

Shego chuckled a bit. They jokingly called Isabel the drill sergeant when it came to the kids because if they did cross the line or just did something to where Isabel had to raise her voice to them, they reacted like well-trained soldiers. The kids did not argue with Isabel or even put up a slight fuss if she used the right tone with them. They merely followed her orders and hoped that the nice grandmother that let them get away with anything came back soon.

"If you want, we can call one of the kids later on to check in on them," Shego said since Kim seemed a bit concerned about their family.

"No, I don't want to interrupt their fun. You're right about Isabel handling them," Kim replied.

"Yeah, Mommy'll keep a good eye on them, so let's just enjoy the peace while we got it."

Kim nodded in agreement and they fell silent again, delighting in the moment more than anything else. Kim reached over and took Shego's hand into hers, interlacing their fingers. Shego did not say anything about the move, but she did smile more from the action.

--------------

"Hey, Jade," Mayah said while kicking the raven-haired girl in the side.

Jayden was sound asleep, as were the other two occupants of the plain room, Raziya and Chyna because it was nighttime. The girls shared a room, which was right across the hall from Isabel's room just in case they got any ideas…and, boy, did they get ideas. Isabel did not worry too much about them, except she did not like when they took Chyna out with them to do something insane because the girl was still pretty small.

"Wha?" Jayden grumbled, trying to remain asleep. She did not need much sleep to get her through the day, but when she fell out, she was typically out.

"Hey, wake up," Mayah ordered, still kicking the crap out of her friend.

"Wha?" the younger girl muttered while swatting forcefully at the leg colliding with her side.

"Wake the fuck up, you lazy ass," Mayah commanded while harshly hitting her friend for the last time.

Jayden lashed out to show that she was awake, spinning on her futon into a kick move. Mayah responded quickly, putting her arm up to block the attack. She pushed Jayden's leg back as it collided with her forearm and the raven-haired girl recovered, flipping into a sitting position. Jayden rubbed her eye while yawning.

"What? What the hell do you want?" Jayden inquired in a tired tone. She had been having a rather pleasant dream, having discovered more species of snakes than her Mom and her Mom was quite proud of her for the accomplishment. She would like to get back to that dream and she wanted a damn good reason for why she was being taken from that.

"That girl…Shi…she's talking to Smiles a lot," Mayah pointed out, sounding bitter and sorrowful.

"Yeah," Jayden agreed with that. She had not been thinking too much on her brother because she was having fun with her friends, doing school activities, and getting into a lot of trouble in general.

"You don't care?" Mayah asked in shock. What had happened to her friend who usually detested when some girl tried to take her brother from her?

"I haven't really thought about it," Jayden admitted.

"Well, think about it."

Jayden took a moment to actually think about. Okay, Shi had been spending noticeable time with her brother and also noticeable time stalking him, but they were going to leave in at least a week or at most two weeks and Shi would not see her brother again. They would go back to their normal lives, but until then, she would like to just run around with everyone like she had been doing.

Jayden flopped back down onto her futon; obviously, thinking about it was not the best thing that Mayah could have suggested. Mayah's face flushed red with anger when Jayden hit the deck again. The older girl growled like a mad dog. What the hell! Jayden was supposed to get pissed with her over Shi being with Todd!

"Wake up, you lazy bitch!" Mayah hollered while stomping on Jayden's back several times. The younger girl let out a wail as her spine was misaligned thanks to her friend.

"What the fuck, man!" Jayden complained while rolling out of the way to stop getting her back kicked in.

"You two, shut up!" Raziya hollered while throwing the closest thing at hand, which happened to be one of her bags. She almost beaned Jayden, which of course, pissed off the other girl.

"Why are you throwing shit at me now!" Jayden demanded to know, screaming at blue-eyed girl. She was just trying to get some sleep and now everyone was being so confrontational toward her; it was understandably vexing.

"Will you all stop yelling!" Chyna complained, showing signs of being like her big sister with how loud her voice went. Like all of her siblings, she had a surprisingly commanding voice when she wanted to have one, especially for such a small child who had not even been talking in complete sentences for a year.

"Yeah, shut up!" Raziya barked, looking for something else to pitch at the loud pair.

"Come over here and say that!" Jayden dared Raziya, pointing to the floor under her.

"You four go to bed!" Isabel ordered loud enough for the whole school to hear her. Before she even finished that sentence though, all four girls were lying down with their covers over them.

----(Next day)

Shi looked over at Todd as she picked up her breakfast. She gulped; he was with his family and friends as usual. She wanted to sit with him, talk to him as suggested by Yori, but she did not dare do that with so many people around him. She went to her usual deserted place and ate breakfast, looking at Todd the whole time. He noticed and Yori suggested that he go find out what the looks were all about. Todd shrugged, but he guessed that he did need to find out if he was going to die on that mountain or if he was going to be able to make it home.

So, after breakfast, Todd skipped the daily sparring that went on and went to find Shi. She was by herself, practicing her shuriken technique. He gulped; he just had to find her while she was doing weapons' training. Well, he supposed that if worse came to worse, he would be able to find out just how good he had gotten as a warrior and if he really did shame his mothers and sister.

"Um…Shi-san," Todd said, almost shyly. He made it a point to be formal with her, even though she was rather "friendly" with him. He did not know where he stood with her, so he was formal with her because of that and always addressed her with the honorific "san" when saying her name. "I noticed you looking at me at breakfast…Um…is there a reason for that?" he asked curiously, trying to sound normal. He did look slightly confused, though.

Shi gulped and her shuriken went astray; in the distance a few seconds later, a cat could be heard screeching in surprise. "Looking at you?" she muttered.

"Yeah, so I was wondering if there was a reason," he replied.

"Reason?" she echoed, her voice close to trembling, but she managed to keep that under control.

"Yeah, I mean, did I make you mad enough to want to kill me at some point in time and you're just waiting for the right moment?" he asked quite seriously.

"Kill you?" Shi repeated again, but she sounded rather shocked. "No, I don't want to kill you," she assured him in a slightly lower tone than she usually spoke in.

"Then, what?" Todd inquired with a curious expression on his face.

"Um…" Shi looked away a bit. "I've been told that I…like you…" she confessed. She was not one to hide from the truth or from facts because hiding meant fear and she feared nothing. She refused to fear anything ever again.

It was now Todd's turn to mimic a parrot. "You like me?" He looked just as incredulous as he sounded.

"That's what Yori-sensei told me," Shi explained.

"Yori? Aunt Yori?" he asked to be sure that they were talking about the same person.

"Yes."

"Oh…Does she know you really well to make that kinda statement?" he asked just to be sure, although it did back up his second theory. He supposed the second theory was a lot better than that first one. After all, he wanted to physically leave Yamanouchi at some point in time.

"She does," Shi confirmed. Yori probably knew her better than any other person on the planet. "She tells me I should talk to you."

"Okay, that sounds like reasonable advice," he replied. He did not think that talking would be so bad, as long as he did not say something to change things from theory number two to theory number one.

"You'll talk to me?" Shi seemed very surprised by that.

Todd grinned. "Sure. Why wouldn't I?" he countered, especially since she was not looking to kill him. She seemed like an all right person to him and he would not mind getting to know her a little better, especially like the reason behind her being so into training and why she trusted Yori so much.

"People don't usually…" she did not finish her sentence.

"Well, you'll find I'm not like most people," he declared quite proudly with his usual big grin.

"I've noticed that," she admitted awkwardly. It seemed like a strange thing to agree with to her, but he was different from most people that she knew.

Todd only laughed, even though he was aware that she did not mean that as a compliment, but she did not mean it as an insult either. He then managed to strike up a conversation with her while they both practiced throwing shuriken. Todd proposed making a contest of it; it was something that he had done with Jayden earlier in the week. It was a just a friendly little contest, which he explained and that it did not mean anything. She surprisingly took it that way and did not get offended when he won.

And from there, the two teens hung out. Mayah did not take it well and actually tried confronting Shi on her new friendship. The bald ninja was not sure how to take the little girl's harsh words, but she was really confused when Mayah claimed Todd as hers. Mayah's exact words were "stay the fuck away from my Smiley or else." Shi wanted to know what such a small child could do as an "or else" and Mayah only smiled wickedly at her; it was actually an empty threat.

Mayah's "or else" did not really have any substance to it. She could not do anything to Shi and she knew that very well. She did not have Jayden's backing because the raven-haired girl was distracted. Damn Jayden and her wandering mind, Mayah mentally cursed. She was going to have to think of something on her own, but she was not sure what. She just knew that she needed something real and solid to hit Shi with if the teen did not stay away from her Todd.

Shi did go to Todd to find out why Mayah would confront her in such a way. He explained the situation as best he could, which was not very good. He just did not understand why Mayah had such a long standing crush on him. He told her to talk to Yori about it for a better explanation; he never wanted it explained to him. He wished that Mayah would just grow out of it as he had been promised she would do by every adult in his life.

----(New day)

"Okay, where's my wild bunch? I need to get you all back to the States before Monique and Felix lop my head off," Isabel announced. She was standing at the entrance of the ninja school and her people were around, but acting up as usual.

"Aw, Grandma, let's stay a few more days!" Jayden complained, even though she was all packed, as were all of her friends.

"Yeah!" Bokuden and Nobunaga chimed in. Maybe they felt like they had not gotten into enough trouble with their friends and wanted them around for a little while longer.

"I am all for that one!" Aztek voted with a cheeky grin. From his stay, he had already been banned from the cafeteria and all purification pools; Romah and Nobunaga were right there with him for different reasons, though.

"Yeah, I'm sure you all are, but believe it or not, I'm actually being thrown out of here and so are you lot," Isabel informed them with an amused smile. She was being serious though; Master Sensei had asked her to get out before those kids destroyed the mountain and she had no doubt that they would try if they were there any longer. So, she got her crew all suited up and they were going to go home. Besides, she knew everyone wanted their kids back by now; it had almost been a month. Hell, Kim and Shego had missed out on Jayden's birthday because of the stay.

"I've been kicked out of better gyp-joints than this!" Aztek declared proudly, pointing his thumb at himself.

Isabel laughed; he watched way too many movies. "Don't you guys miss your parents too?" she asked to get them in the mood to leave. She knew if they did not want to leave, it would be it hard to actually get them all going.

"Oh, yeah, I wonder what Mom and Mommy are doing," Jayden admitted with a curious look on her face. Now that she remembered that she had mothers, she would like to get back to them.

"Hmm…I do wanna see Mommy and Daddy," Raziya said too. She missed her parents too, having never been away from them for a month.

"Then let's get out of here," Isabel declared and all of her crew agreed, except for an important member.

"Um…Grandma, is it all right if I hang back?" Todd requested. Everyone looked at him with shocked expressions. He looked away when all eyes fell on him.

"You want to stay?" Isabel inquired, sounding almost as stunned as she actually was. He was her second in command, after all. He was supposed to help her with the kids, not that she really felt like she needed the help. She also thought that he would miss Kim and Shego as much as Jayden, which he did, but he still wanted to stick around for a while.

"Yeah, I do," Todd replied while glancing to the side a bit. Yards away, Shi was standing, thinking that she would be watching him leave. They all noticed that and Mayah frowned deeply.

"Well, I don't have a problem with it. Just remember school starts at the beginning of September," Isabel replied.

"How could I forget that?" Todd inquired with a smile. He was looking forward to college. Go University seemed like it would be a great place to be, especially since he could bug his Kimmie.

"Be careful," Isabel replied with a smirk. "Your aunt and uncle will be watching after all."

"Grandma," Todd groaned, knowing what she was hinting at. "It's nothing like that. I'm just getting really good while I'm here and I want to keep that up."

"Uh-huh, you watch what you get good at," Isabel remarked with a teasing wink. Her grandson blushed, but he did not get the chance to argue against what she was thinking.

"Smiley, you can't stay!" Mayah begged as she ran over to the redheaded teen. She stared up at him, looking absolutely crushed; her eyes were wide, watering over from grief. She grabbed a hold of his tee-shirt, clutching it tightly in tiny fists.

"Mayah," Todd muttered, not sure what to say.

"Please!" she implored him as she started crying. She was going to lose him to that Shi girl. It was not fair. He was hers! He had always been hers!

"I'm not going to be gone forever. I just want to get better at fighting," he explained, hoping that would get her to stop weeping.

"That's not it! Please, come home with us!" Mayah continued to beg while bawling into his shirt. She knew instinctively why he was staying. He wanted to spend time with Shi. It was not fair.

"If you stay, you better get stronger, booger," Jayden proclaimed with a determined face while holding up her fist.

"You know I will. You better do the same," Todd replied with a smile.

Jayden nodded and smiled back. She ended up pulling Mayah away from her brother. She did not understand why Mayah was acting so weird, really stupid in her and the other kids' opinions. Mayah at least stopped crying as she realized she was leaving and he was staying. She frowned as she shot a look of pure hatred at Shi and then she turned her fiery mismatched eyes to Todd. He gulped because of the look. He was pretty sure the devil himself would have been scared to see such an expression on such a young girl.

"I fucking hate you and I'll get you back for this, you bastard," Mayah said with such contempt and calculation that Todd did not doubt her on it.

"Mayah, calm down. He's gonna come home soon, so let's go," Jayden said and Raziya agreed with her. The two pulled their friend along; Mayah continued to glare at Todd as she left.

"She's gonna eat me alive, isn't she?" Todd muttered.

"Yeah," Ron concurred with a nod.

Todd sighed, but he supposed that it could not be undone. He walked away when his family was out of sight and he went over to Shi. He strolled off with her.

----(New day)

Todd had stayed as long as he could at Yamanouchi. He only had a couple of days before school started and his parents had ordered him to get his "narrow ass back home." The Stoppable family had already left him days ago. He thought that the stay was worth it, though. He was stronger for one thing and, well, the other thing was staying in front of him to bid him farewell.

"I'm going to miss you," Shi admitted, looking down rather than at him. She felt embarrassed to admit such a thing.

"I'll miss you too, but you know, you can always come see me. I mean, we've got some pretty tough numbers in Go City for you to practice on," Todd pointed out with his usual smile.

Shi shook her head to disagree, which he understood. While being there for the extra month, he had learned a lot about Shi. She had vowed never to leave Yamanouchi until she was strong enough to defeat everyone there. She had a vendetta to pay back. Her parents had been killed by a ninja, who had left her alive just for the privilege of having someone in the world hate him as much as she did and she did hate him to the very depths of her soul. She had hated him for over ten years now. It was because of him that she took on the name Shi because the other her died the night that her parents were slain. She was going to slay him as soon as she was strong enough. She was not going to fool around and assume that she was powerful; she needed confirmation by being able to defeat her whole school.

"You can come back here…" Shi proposed in a hopeful, almost shy voice. She did not understand it, but the more time that she spent around Todd, the more she liked him to the point where it made her feel light. He treated her different from almost everyone else; it was not just that he did not fear her, but there was something else that she could not explain. It did not matter, she just knew that she liked it.

"Sure, I'll come back. It's just gonna take a few months. That's okay with you?" he asked, sounding a bit worried. He wanted things to be okay with her.

"I'll be here," she replied.

"Maybe. I'll come back, but until then, you can write me. Just to let you know, I don't read Japanese half as well as I speak it, but I'll damn sure try to," he informed her with a smile.

"You better," she playfully threatened him. It was not until him that she knew that she could be playful.

"I will and if not, Aunt Yori is there to translate and my pop reads Japanese pretty good. Just don't write anything too embarrassing, like how you keep beating me in shogi," he remarked with a laugh.

She laughed a bit too. She felt like there was something that she should be doing with him leaving, but she was not sure what. Todd had a feeling of what it was, but he was not very comfortable with the idea of being the first one to do it. Instead of doing what he thought she wanted, he leaned down and kissed her forehead. It was then that she realized what she wanted to do and she tilted her head up to kiss him on the mouth.

It was her first kiss and it was pure delight, making her feel soft all over. He felt pleasant as the sensation washed over him. They both nearly sighed contently from the feeling, finding it to be lovely and light. By the time they pulled away, she was blushing; once again, her whole head turned bright red.

"Don't get any ninja boyfriends while I'm gone," he joked.

"You don't get any girlfriends point blank while you're away," she ordered him quite seriously.

He smiled at her, but promised to be faithful, even though she did not need the promise. She trusted him; he was only the second person in the world that she really trusted since the death of her parents. She supposed that since he was "related" to the first person that she trusted helped out. She was able to believe in him because she had seen how much Yori trusted him while they were all there. She trusted Yori so much because Yori was her first teacher, who also acted as sort of a surrogate mother for her.

Todd was gone after that. He had to go back home, which he was happy to see when he got there. When he got in, he was ambushed by Jayden and Kim, who were overjoyed that he was back. They gave him tackling hugs that they usually reserved just for Shego, who stood back until those two were done and then she gave him an under control hug. They were all happy that he was back.

"You know, Mayah was wondering when you were coming back," Jayden reported, speaking to her brother.

"Yeah? She wanted to beat me up?" Todd inquired curiously.

"It didn't sound that way. She sounded like she missed you every time she talked about you. But, I guess she'll be all right now that you're back," Jayden answered with a smile of her own. She was obviously happy that Mayah was going to be pleased now that everything was back the way it should be.

Todd just scratched his head. He did not know what to make of that news. He thought that Mayah would hate him, which he actually would not mind. It was more than the fact that she seriously "creeped" him out with her seeming affections toward him that a lot of the time seemed to go deeper than a mere crush, but he thought that if she hated him, she would get over him and that would help her grow up more normal. After all, she was going to be a teenager soon and she should be open to exploring crushes on boys her own age.

The next time that Todd saw Mayah, which was on his birthday, he could hardly look at her. She seemed…heartbroken, an inexplicable look on unfathomable sorrow in her mismatched eyes and her shoulders seemed to carry the burden of the whole world with the way they slumped down. It tore him up on the inside, but he thought that it was best. He just wished that she did not have to be so hurt over it.

On his birthday, Todd had a little surprise for everyone, something like a gift for them. He flashed them all a grin as his family and close friends finished up on the "happy birthday" song and then he informed them all that he had legally changed his last name to "Possible-Gooding." Jayden cheered and gave him a high-five immediately before ordering him to open the gift from her first; according to her, it needed air soon. He could not help laughing; only Jayden would think to give him a wrapped birthday gift that needed to breathe.

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Next time: the kids go to junior high and Jayden and Raziya have a showdown.


	42. Reason Fortytwo: Rivalry

I don't own these characters and I don't own the original premise behind this saga. I don't own the Care Bears. I do own the usual suspects of Jayden, Mayah, Raziya, Bokuden, and Todd.

Warning: there are ten chapters left.

Reason Forty-two: Rivalry

_Wow, these guys are actually still alive. That's got to be a sign that we're doing something right. _

The parents were starting to get nervous, although they were happy. Their elder kids were now in junior high school. It was great that they had all lived so long, first of all. It had been a constant fear of their parents that they would not live a decade, yet there they were going to the seventh grade and had made it to twelve, Mayah anyway, and eleven, Bokuden, Raziya, and Jayden. It was like a milestone, which the parents did hope their other kids made it through.

But, there was the bad thing with the kids making it to junior high, which was that it was prelude to the fact that they were going to be teenagers soon. The thought of them as teenagers was frightening in and of itself, but watching them now was more than enough to make certain parents, like Shego and Betty, think that their daughters might not make it to teenagers. Those two thought that Mayah and Jayden might not make it because they were considering that they might have to murder their daughters themselves. But then again, the kids might take care of that all on their own; between the fighting and the science, those kids were definitely lucky to still be alive.

Many of the parents liked to argue amongst themselves that certain folks among them were not helping in the process in their kids possibly not living to be adults. Between Kim, Felix, and Ron, they made the other parents slightly nervous considering the things that they did with the kids or showed the kids how to do. Between the deadly animals, inventions, and just all around wild behavior, junior high might not be ready for those kids.

--------------

"Woo-hoo!" Jayden cheered loudly and jubilantly as she and her friends raced through the school campus on modified skateboards. The boards were modified to transform into hover-boards and were created by Felix, who took a break from his main concern of cyberization to do something fun for the kids; fun and worth many trips to the trauma ward in the hospital, Shego had commented when he presented the kids such devices.

"Look out!" Bokuden called as he dropped down behind Jayden, ending up at her side. She just laughed from the bottom of her heart as he came up next to her.

Bokuden smiled back when he noticed her expression and then he glanced behind them to check on the other part of their close group. Raziya and Mayah were engaging in their new favorite hobby, which happened to be yelling at each other. It was similar to their former past time of screaming at Jayden, which they definitely still engaged in since it was felt all around that there were times when Jayden needed hollering at. The latter pair were using the hover feature of their boards while Jayden and Bokuden preferred the skating part of being on the boards.

They had only recently gotten into the activity of skateboarding. When they showed an interest in it, Felix almost immediately took the time to create the boards for them; well, after Raziya had pitched the very interesting idea to him anyway. He had made boards for all of the kids since the little ones liked to do what the older ones did anyway.

The group was all very happy with starting junior high. First of all, they liked beginning new things. It was a weird little quirk of theirs that came with being adventurous little maniacs. The best way to hype them up would be to introduce them to something new and had the potential to be exciting.

The next thing that they liked about junior high school was that they got to wear new uniforms. They had all hated their elementary school uniforms, even though they had tried their best to find ways within the school rules to improve on things, like Bokuden eventually tearing the sleeves off of the blazer that they had been required to wear. The blonde boy had a thing for lacking sleeves, which his mother thought was odd considering the fact that he idolized his father so much and Ron only wore shirts with sleeves, sometimes more than one at the same time.

The rules of the junior high were a bit more open to letting the students be individuals, which was one of the things that had the group happy with being seventh graders. The girls had the choice of wearing pants when back in elementary they were required to wear skirts. They could not decide on their own footwear back in elementary; they had to wear specific shoes. Now, they could pick out their own footwear.

They still had to wear blazers, but they came in different colors, which Raziya and Jayden were thankful for since they were very picky when it came to the colors that they wore. Bokuden had torn the sleeves off of his blazer before leaving home. Mayah really had no problem with the uniforms, but she did like the fact that they had more variety. They had tailored their uniforms to fit their liking.

Jayden was wearing black pants, which were kind of baggy. She had a patch sown onto the pants; it was an image of Good Luck Bear that her Mom had put on the trousers for her when Shego was not looking. She had on a green blazer, which she had buttoned up because she was wearing a plain Care Bear tee-shirt underneath it. She had on canvas sneakers that were white once-upon-a-time. The footwear did not have any laces, like her Mom, she hated taking time out of her day to have to lace up sneakers. She had her favorite Care Bears drawn on the sneakers; the footwear was a gift from Raziya, who was quite gifted with an airbrush.

Raziya was wearing pants too, even though she was working her way to liking skirts, slowly but surely anyway. She was wearing black sneakers to match her pants, even though she was also slowly developing a taste for shoes. She actually found herself shopping with her mother recently and commenting that a pair of loafers were "cute." If her friends were around to hear such things, they would have balked at the words that came out of her mouth, but her mother just agreed with her. Monique had said that the shoes were "too adult" for Raziya, who looked absolutely panic-stricken that her mother would think that she was requesting such footwear. She had on what she felt was a tasteful color for the blazer, which happened to be a lilac violet. She was developing a love for pastels.

Mayah was the only one amongst them wearing a skirt, but she made sure to have shorts on underneath it considering how the wind blew when she was riding her hover-board. She wore black stockings to match her skirt and the cobalt blue blazer; she was getting more and more into dark blues as time progressed. She had on low-heeled shoes that matched her blazer; she was an expert on riding the board with shoes on while her friends had the bad habit of falling if they did not have on sneakers.

Bokuden had on slacks, of course. The sleeves on his matching black blazer were torn off, only to reveal the sleeves of his white dress shirt underneath; heaven help him if he torn the sleeves off of one of his good shirts and his mother saw. He wore expensive black sneakers, even though he preferred boots to sneakers. He just had not figured out how to get the best grip on his board with his boots yet.

"Just shut the hell up!" Mayah hollered at Raziya as the group continued on. "I'm so sick of hearing your fucking mouth!"

"But, your hair would look so much cuter if you did it in the style I said," Raziya argued, purposely using a girly coo as she spoke. She knew that it would drive her friend out of her mind and she thought that was just too fun now.

"I like my hair like this!" Mayah barked. She had her straight chocolate-colored hair brushed to the side in the front, giving her a bang, and pulled into a ponytail in the back. Her blue-eyed friend had been attempting to get her to change the style, calling it boring and citing the number of years that Mayah had been wearing her hair in such a manner.

"Smiley would like it the other way I bet," Raziya remarked smugly.

The older girl growled like a savage beast and swirled into Raziya, intentionally attempting to cause an accident. Raziya avoided the hit and laughed a bit, even though deep down she knew that it was not a good thing to say. The kids had grown just enough to realize that Mayah had something of a crush on Todd; they knew that she liked him in a different way than they did.

Mayah was also growing to better understand her feelings toward Todd, which was a mixed bag if never there was one. She burned intensely with two extreme emotions toward the redheaded teenager. She loved him like no other person on the planet, not that she totally understood the love to be any different from the affections her friends held toward Todd, but damn it, she hated him like no other person that she had ever met. She hated him because he was still with Shi, the bald ninja from Yamanouchi. She had yet to figure out totally why she would hate him for having a girlfriend, except she did feel jealousy and envy toward the Japanese teenager. She wanted Todd, but she did not know how she wanted him.

The group all came to a halt as they got to their new school building. It was a decidedly professional-looking building and they decided that they were proud to call it their school, for the next two years anyway. They did note there were so many windows on the large two story building.

"How much do you think those cost?" Jayden wondered aloud, referring to the windows. There was a hint of mischief behind her olive eyes, but innocence in her tone that made things confusing on whether she planned on doing something to them or if it was just an inevitable accident that she saw coming.

"Enough to get us yelled at each and every time we break one," Raziya answered with a bit of a naughty smile, obviously more aware that those windows were just trouble waiting to happen with them. Her friends all nodded.

"This is going to be a great school!" Jayden declared with her usual grin while clapping her hands and rubbing her palms together. No sooner had those words left her mouth did she nearly get run over by a tall boy with messy ebony hair.

"Out of my way, freshman," the boy said to Jayden in a condescending tone while she caught her balance.

"Fucking bitch!" Jayden hollered in anger, referring to the young man that had almost mowed her over. She made a fist from her outrage, apparently ready to take on the larger kid. She did not move fast enough, though.

"Oi, you can't just push her like that," Bokuden objected while moving before his friends and grabbing hold of the taller boy. Bokuden was actually the shortest amongst his clique. The girls delighted in patting him on the head when they were in patronizing moods.

"Unhand me, freshman," the boy, who was Asian, ordered the blonde boy in a low, dangerous tone. There was a cold look in his onyx eyes as he glared down at the shorter boy. He knew they were underclassmen because of the cut of their blazers.

"Apologize to her," Bokuden countered while nodding toward Jayden. He seemed unimpressed with the older boy.

The taller boy laughed. "Don't try me, kid."

"Don't try to act so cool," Bokuden replied in a slightly heated tone.

The other boy sucked his teeth. "That's what I should be telling you. Stop trying to look good in front of your girlfriend before I make you look worse than you already do," he warned the smaller kid.

"To hell with that. Apologize," Bokuden demanded again, his expression sterner than his voice.

"To hell with apologizing. I can just kick his ass right here and now," Jayden proclaimed confidently, smiling while holding up a fist.

The taller boy, apparently an upperclassman considering that fact that he referred to them as "freshmen," rolled his eyes and slapped Bokuden's hand from his person. Bokuden looked shocked by the ease that the boy knocked away his grip and then the boy walked off into the school. The friends all stared at his back.

"He knows martial arts," they all concluded simultaneously just from watching the boy walk off.

They would later learn that his name was Katsuro Fukushima. He was a new student from Japan. He would develop a very bitter demeanor toward Jayden and Bokuden eventually, not that they could figure out why. Other people with bothered feelings toward them and their friends mostly made sense, especially since most of those people were teachers, but with Katsuro, there did not seem to be any reason behind his attitude.

"Making new friends already," Jayden remarked with a smile as she and her friends were sent to the principal's office on the first day after fooling around in the physics lab. Her friends were not as upbeat as she was, but sometimes it was hard to be as upbeat as she was and smile through every single thing.

----(New day)

"Wait a second," Jayden suddenly said while spreading her arms, bringing her three friends to a halt. They had been walking in the hallway of their new school, going to lunch as scheduled, but it seemed that they were about to be held up.

"What the hell, man?" Mayah complained as she stopped to avoid getting slapped in the stomach by the youngest among them.

"Look at this!" Jayden practically squealed with joy as she pointed to a flyer that was on the wall in the hallway.

Mayah and Bokuden turned to look, but they did not have any real reaction toward it. It was not directed toward them anyway. Raziya was the one that was supposed to react and she did not disappoint. She squealed just like Jayden did. The flyer was advertising a science fair coming up next month with prizes.

"That grand prize is so mine," Raziya declared confidently.

"The hell it is!" Jayden objected with a good-natured grin.

"We'll see about that," Raziya replied with challenging spark in her sky blue eyes.

"You can't beat me," Jayden stated, as if that was a well-known fact.

"What? You wish you could beat me," the blue-eyed girl countered.

"I'm going to do it at this fucking science fair."

"You wish!" Raziya proclaimed heatedly.

"You're going down, Renton!" Jayden shouted, like she was angry. "I'm kicking your fat ass!"

The two scientist-wannabes glared at each other, lightning practically shooting out of there eyes at each other before storming off in opposite directions. Their behavior did catch the attention of a couple of teachers passing by, who were familiar with the little clique, but not enough to know what was up with the girls, so they had to stop and ask. They walked over to Bokuden and Mayah, who were both looking in the opposite direction, watching the geniuses walk off. Bokuden was focused on Jayden and Mayah on Raziya. They then switched, Mayah looking at Jayden and Bokuden looking at Raziya. They then turned to each other before acknowledging the teachers.

"Are they all right?" the first teacher inquired with concern, referring to the two girls walking off.

"Oh, yeah. They're just crazy about science," Bokuden answered with a bit of a smile and a shrug.

"Or just plain crazy," Mayah remarked with a friendly smile. "Especially Jade," she added with an even bigger smile.

The teachers accepted that explanation because they did not have anything else to go on. They walked off, leaving Bokuden and Mayah alone again. They looked at each other again; Bokuden rubbed the back of his head.

"This is going to get a lot worse before it gets better, isn't it?" the blonde boy asked, even though he knew the answer to that one.

"Doesn't it always?" Mayah countered.

"Yeah," he agreed. "So, do we go after them?"

"To hear them rant about science shit and why one nerd is gonna beat the other nerd? Hell no. Let's get to lunch and see if they have any more fruit cocktails," Mayah suggested quite seriously.

Bokuden shrugged; he liked fruit cocktail and science was not as interesting to him as it was to their two absent friends. So, he walked off with Mayah to go to lunch while Raziya and Jayden cut school. They both ran right to their parents' places of work, their scientist parents.

--------------

"Jade, baby, what are you doing here?" Kim asked curiously as she turned her attention to her daughter, who was supposed to be in school and not standing right behind her in the Go University biology lab the last time that she checked.

"Mom, you've gotta help me come up with a better science project than Razi!" Jayden begged while trying to catch her breath. She had ridden her skateboard all the way to the lab; it had not occurred to her to engage in the hover mode since she rarely used it.

"Science project?" Kim echoed in a puzzled tone. It was about that time that she remembered that she was holding a poisonous snake and decided to return the creature to its cage before she had an accident, which she would not even chance with Jayden being around.

"Yeah, the school's having a science fair! I gotta do something cool to kick Razi's ass. Maybe even show her that natural science is why better than mechanical science," Jayden explained. She and her mother actually liked both forms of science and excelled in both, but there was just a soft place in their hearts for natural science because of their love for cold-blooded animals.

"Well, how much time do we have to think of something?" Kim asked, implying that she was on board with helping.

"Til next month. You gonna help me?" Jayden inquired, ready to fall into the never-fail puppy-dog pout if necessary.

"Of course," Kim answered with a big smile. "We'll come up with something great. Way better than anything Razi and Felix can think of," she promised, still smiling up a storm.

"Yes! Let's totally kick their asses!" Jayden cheered. Her tone and words hardly earned glances from the other scientists around because they were now fairly used to Jayden and her happy nature and crude vocabulary. She was often around because she liked to know more about Kim's work and sometimes she could stowaway on a mission or two by just being there as long as they were nothing too dangerous.

Kim only laughed. She just hoped that she would be able to match Jayden's energy when they started brainstorming on the project; although if she did not, she knew that Todd would be right there, pitching in. It was about to be a Possible-Gooding group project, which just made the mother and daughter grin even more.

--------------

Raziya burst into her father's office, even though she knew that he hated when she did that. He had been working calculations out on a legal pad and, as soon as the door was pushed open, his pen went awry and left an unflattering ink streak across his page. He sighed and turned his attention to his daughter, knowing that she was the only one that came into the office like she worked for the Go City police department.

"Daddy, you gotta help me!" Raziya pled, which led Felix to think that something was wrong, especially considering his daughter and her friends.

"Why? What happened, Razi?" he asked with concern in his voice.

"I have to come up with a better science project than Jade and I need your help!"

Felix breathed a sigh of relief, glad that a science project was the only problem. That would be easy enough to handle. But, he knew that getting Raziya to build something that would top Jayden would be quite the challenge, one that he would willingly accept. He smiled at his child.

"We'll kick some Possible-Gooding butt," Felix declared vigorously.

"Yay, Daddy!" Raziya cheered, making a fist to celebrate.

"Now, we've just got to think of something really cool," Felix said. He was willing to bet that Kim and her kids were going to come up with something off of the wall, so he and Raziya were going to have to do something spectacular.

--------------

Shego entered the house and was surprised that she was not ambushed by her wife or their offspring. She was a little disappointed, having gotten very used to the attention and feeling very appreciated whenever the tackling hugs came as greeting to let her know that she was truly home. She wondered why she was not getting her usual embrace and decided to go investigate.

Shego kicked off her shoes and went to the living room. Her heart skipped a beat when her eyes gazed upon her once-clean living room. It looked like a tornado had ripped through the place. Her family was sitting on the floor with all kinds of paper everywhere, some crumbled up into balls and some lying flat. They were all writing vigorously for a few moments.

"Okay, what about this," Todd started reading from a paper in front of him. "What if we make a model of the Hindenburg, complete with the explosion at the end?"

"Cool," Jayden practically cooed, her lips puckered out as she spoke the word.

"We're not blowing up the science lab," Kim objected soundly.

"Damn right you're not. We don't have the money to pay for anymore accidents," Shego declared. The sound of her voice turned her family's attention toward her.

"Oh, Mommy, do you wanna help me?" Jayden inquired with a hopeful grin.

"Help you with what?" Shego asked curiously.

"We're thinking of things for the science fair that's coming up in school. We've got to think of something really cool so I beat Raziya's ass and once and for all prove, I'm way better at science than she is," Jayden proclaimed.

"Let me take a shower and I'll try to help," Shego replied.

"Okay. I bet you could come up all kinds of great stuff since you used to fight crazy science stuff all the time," Jayden pointed out.

Shego only laughed at that as she went to go take her shower. She put on some house clothes and made herself comfortable in the living room with everyone else. They did make a little project out of the brainstorming, using it as an excuse to order pizza for dinner. By the time it was Jayden's bedtime, they were all pretty sure that they had the perfect idea. The three science-maniacs of the family decided that they would start working on the plan as soon as possible, tomorrow even if Kim was able to gather up the materials that they would need.

"That Hindenburg idea would've been great, though," Todd commented as he was about to go to bed.

"We're not blowing up a little airship in room full of people," Kim protested again.

"I'm just saying that it would've been cool," the teenager said with a shrug and then he shut his bedroom door.

"He's right, you know? It would've been cool," Kim said to her spouse, who did not know whether to laugh or shake her head in a disapproving manner.

----(New day)

Jayden was rushing through the school hallway with a large box in her hands which was sealed. She was trying to make her way to the gym because that was where the science fair was going on. She was running a bit behind schedule because she had stopped to talk with one of her teachers. So, she was mostly worrying about making it to where she needed to be in order to set up on time. She wanted things to be up before her mothers and brother showed up. Because of the fact that she was more concerned about where she needed to be rather than watching where she was going, she ended up nearly mowing someone down.

"Sorry," Jayden sincerely apologized to whoever she hit.

"Watch where you're going, you clumsy freshman," Katsuro Fukushima said bitterly, looking down at Jayden through cold onyx eyes with his head tilted upward, as if he was superior to her.

"Oh, it's just you, Katsuro-chan," the girl commented in an unimpressed tone. She referred to him as "Katsuro-chan" to make fun of him and his attitude toward her. It was a cutesy way to refer to him, mocking him.

Katsuro frowned. "Don't call me that, freshman. If you think I won't teach you respect or your place, you're wrong," he informed her in a harsh tone.

Jayden grinned. "I'd love for you to try, but I don't have time for it. I've got places to be," she declared while trotting off with her usual smile in place.

Katsuro continued to frown while watching Jayden's back as she retreated. He wanted to just follow her and kick her in the back, injuring her severely. There was something about that girl that he thoroughly disliked, which was not being helped by her calling him "Katsuro-chan" in a chirper tone, as she often did. She needed to treat him the way that he wanted to be treated, he believed, since he was older. She should get out of his way when he walked by because he was the senior. She needed to show him due respect, especially since he could crush her if he felt like it; in his opinion anyway.

Jayden put Katsuro out of her mind as soon as he was out of her sight. She ran into a stairwell and hopped over the side, obviously in such a hurry that she did not have the time to use stairs. A teacher saw her and hollered out for her to be more cautious, but she was not paying the teacher any mind. She did not stop to catch her breath until she was securely in the gym and standing at the table that she was to set up on.

"Trying to play like the hero with such a late arrival?" Raziya inquired, setting up right next to Jayden. Her choice of words was a knock at Jayden's admiration of Kim.

"Just want to give you some time to sweat before I kick your fucking ass," Jayden replied in a rather friendly tone with a matching smile on her face.

"Keep dreaming," the older girl commented while patting her project, which was concealed in a box.

"Yeah, lemme guess, you got a robot in there," the raven-haired girl said in a bored tone while rolling her eyes.

"And you've got a snake in there," Raziya countered in exactly the same tone as her friend while rolling her eyes too.

"Oi, let's have a good, clean science fair," Bokuden commented as he and Mayah strolled over. They were there to support their friends and nothing more. They actually could have gone home since the science fair was an after-school affair, but they figured that they should be there for their friends and the obvious epic battle that was going to happen when one of them lost to the other.

It was not the group's first science fair. Raziya and Jayden had been competing in such events since the fourth grade. They never did anything simple like a baking soda volcano or an ant farm, which was why they typically won science fairs. It was just that they were not gracious losers when it came to each other. And god help everyone if there was a tie.

"Tell her to give up then," Jayden replied to Bokuden's statement.

"Just admit defeat now, Jade. We all know how this is gonna end," Raziya boasted, smiling arrogantly.

"Yeah, we do. Me holding that first place ribbon and you weeping in the corner like the little bitch you are," Jayden remarked, her own haughty smirk in place.

"WHAT!" Raziya shouted in an outrage and Mayah had to hold her back. The "little bitch" part was not the thing that set her off, but the fact that it had been implied that she would lose.

"C'mon, Razi, you set yourself up for that one," Mayah pointed out and that did come the blue-eyed girl down because she was right.

"We'll see whose crying in the end!" Raziya proclaimed confidently.

"You," Jayden said smoothly.

Raziya was bright red from her anger and if it was possible, smoke probably would have come out of her ears. She was going to just thrash Jayden for being a wiseass, but they were suddenly interrupted as her parents along with Jayden's family strolled over. The adults all looked quite happy, as they typically did when they were at events that the kids actually volunteered for.

"Hey, little bits," Felix greeted the four of them.

"Everybody got on their boxing gloves?" Todd remarked as a joke.

"I brought body armor," Bokuden replied and he was not lying. He was wearing chain mail underneath his clothing; hey, the last time that he was at a science fair, a certain little ebony-haired spitfire had talked him into participating and they both worked with chemicals rather close to each other, which just doubled the explosion that they caused. As Mayah liked to say, chemists they were not, which actually bothered the both of them because they wanted to be chemists.

"You wouldn't happen to have an extra set, would you?" Todd joked with a smile.

"Sorry," Bokuden replied. He would have thought that Todd was smart enough to bring his own.

Todd only smiled. He glanced down at Mayah, who was looking away. Every time she saw him, she did not know whether she wanted to hug him and impale him, not that she generally was carrying a sword or spear to do so. She typically just stared at the floor when he came around, not moving much, and that was what she did there. It bothered Todd that she seemed uncomfortable around him because he was just used to all of the kids being lively and trying to pull him into some mischief that they were looking to create. He wished that she would get over him soon, so she could stop acting so differently when he was around.

"You two, just remember that you're friends when the judges come around, okay?" Monique said to Raziya and Jayden.

"Oh, yeah, she's my friend, my friend that will be defeated," Raziya stated. Her mother thought that she was watching too much television from the way that she spoke now.

"Defeat this." Jayden gave her good friend the finger while sticking her tongue at Raziya.

"Hey," Shego scolded her daughter and slapped the child lightly in the back of the head. Sometimes, she did try to instill some manners in her daughter now that the girl was old enough to realize that she should act a bit more mature and behave a little differently.

"Ow!" Jayden said. "Mommy, you made me bite my tongue!" she whined.

"Such a little baby," Shego commented while putting her arm around Jayden's shoulders and rubbing her child's head in a loving manner.

"Good luck both of you," Kim said with a bright grin.

Both girls smiled in appreciation, but then glared daggers at each other. The girls finished setting up, but did not take their projects out of the boxes because they did not want the other to see. They were just going to wait for the judges to come around and that did not take long.

"Um…Raziya, where's your science project?" one of the three judges asked. He was a teacher in the school and already a month into the term, most teachers knew Raziya and the rest of her crew.

"It's in here. Watch and be amazed," Raziya declared.

"At another corny robot," Jayden added with a mocking expression.

Raziya frowned deeply at Jayden's remark, but ignored her friend for the most part. She cast aside the box in a rather dramatic fashion that caused Jayden to roll her eyes. The olive-eyed girl was not surprised by what was underneath the box; it was a humanoid robot that stood about two-feet high. It was designed in white and lilac-colored plastics.

"Dear god, it's a robot!" Jayden gasped sarcastically.

"Not just any robot, you little monster," Raziya replied, mocking Jayden with the use of mothers' nickname for her. The blue-eyed girl then turned her attention back to the judges. "It's a cleaning robot. It's programmed to do five household chores. It vacuums, sweeps, and mops, which all underneath doing the floor. It dusts and polishes. It does dishes. And it scrubs, which covers walls, windows, and tubs," she explained proudly. She was glad to fit so many features under the five chores that she and her father were able to program into the bot.

Raziya and Felix had come up with the idea of the robot when Monique had come in to the apartment when they were brainstorming. Monique had practically hit the ceiling because of the mess and demanded to know who was going to clean up. Raziya and Felix looked at each other like it was obvious and they were then lucky to live through that day considering the fact that they had the nerve to point at Monique as their answer.

"Big deal," Jayden said with a faux yawn, covering her mouth with her hand as she spoke.

"Oh, yeah, then why don't you show 'em your stupid snake?" Raziya challenged her friend. Jayden almost always did science projects on snakes in some way. There was only one time when she did something different, which involved her and Bokuden blowing themselves up.

"I don't have just any snake. I have the ultimate snake!" Jayden boasted.

"It's just a snake, probably papier-mâché," Raziya commented in a snotty tone.

"When I say ultimate, I mean ultimate," the younger girl stated while casting aside her box to display her science project.

"It's a regular snake," Raziya deadpanned, staring at the revealed project.

"The _ultimate_ snake," Jayden hissed. "It's bio-mechanical with organic organs, a metallic skeleton, and thin wire nerves. It's eighteen feet long and fully mobile with constricting capabilities along with four top rows of hook-like teeth and two very sharp, hypodermic-like fangs topped off with venom," she stated with a cheeky grin. The best of both types of snakes, venomous and constricting.

"Did you say venom?" the teacher-judge inquired in a shaky tone. He would not put it passed the raven-haired girl to have created something that could destroy them all.

"Yeah," Jayden answered in an excited tone. "It's both hemotoxic and neurotoxic, like both types of common snake venoms."

"Love, tell me you didn't help Jade put venom in that snake," Shego pretty much pled, speaking to her wife.

"Don't be silly," Kim replied and they both turned to Todd, who grinned nervously.

"Smiley," the couple said in stern voices.

The redheaded boy chuckled a bit from nervousness. "It was such a great idea, though! I mean, when she pitched it to me, how could I say no?" he begged to know.

"How toxic is the venom?" Kim asked curiously.

"Not…very," Todd answered cryptically.

"But, it is toxic," Shego said.

"Well…if you want to be technical about it," Todd replied, looking thoroughly ashamed now that he had been found out. It was such a cool idea, though and the fact that he and Jayden had pulled it off was fantastic.

Kim and Shego actually looked frightened. They turned their attention back to Jayden and Raziya, who were doing their usual barking at each other about whose project was better. The judges looked absolutely bemused on what they should do or if they should just move on, although they doubted that they would find better projects among the students, even though everyone in the school was rather bright. It was just that if Jayden's and Raziya's projects did as they claimed, it would be hard to top those.

"Look, the ultimate snake is like a billion fucking times better than a cleaning robot!" Jayden declared.

"My robot has a purpose! What does a robot snake do to help?" Raziya countered.

"It's not a fucking robot! It's bio-mechanical, you deaf cunt," Jayden stated; her language was drawing a crowd.

"I don't care what it is! What good does it do?" Raziya demanded to know as people gathered around and were surprised to see that it was just two little girls going at each other as bitter rivals.

"It fucks up your robot is what it does!"

"My robot would destroy you fake-out snake I.A.H!"

Jayden was thrown off for a second, looking rather perplexed. "I.A.H?" she inquired, almost as if she was not angry anymore.

"In a hurry," Raziya explained the acronym, also sounding as if she was no longer upset.

"Why didn't you just say that?" Jayden asked curiously.

"I dunno," Raziya answered with a shrug. "It seemed cool to shorten it."

"Okay. Now, where were we?" Jayden wondered aloud.

"My robot was about to eat your snake for lunch," Raziya informed her friend.

"Bring it the fuck on!" Jayden declared as she grabbed the remote control of her bio-mechanical serpent. She activated the creature, whose eyes glowed bright yellow now that it was on.

Raziya yanked up the remote control for her robot and activated it. "Lemme show you the final program I put in this for just such an emergency."

Raziya's cleaning-bot locked onto Jayden's snake and shot over to the serpent thanks to thrusters in its back. A lance grew out of the robot's arm and it went to strike the snake in the head with the weapon. The snake ducked and slapped the robot away with its tail. The robot few through several other project setups and the snake chased after it, moving rapidly. Jayden looked at her friend with a devilish smirk on her face; it was one that Raziya matched.

People moved out of the way as the rather bulky snake came through. It opened its mouth, revealing those teeth that Jayden had been bragging about, as it came upon the little robot, which was on its feet. The robot flipped back, avoiding getting chomped by the snake. The robot fired pins from the lance in its palm, which the snake dodged while coming in for another attack.

The robot moved back as the snake got closer, knocking down more tables that were in the way. The people around could not believe their eyes as to what was going on as they watched the projects attempting to destroy each other. And then things suddenly came to a halt.

"Didn't we tell you two no fighting this time?" Shego inquired, holding Jayden off of the ground by one arm, which made it impossible for the girl to control her snake because she needed both hands for the remote.

"We're not fighting," Jayden pointed out.

"Yeah," Raziya agreed. She was being held by her mother while her father took the remote from her.

"No projects fighting either," Kim stated.

"You never said that!" Jayden and Raziya objected.

"They're right. You guys told them not to fight," Todd pointed out.

"You're not helping, Smiley," Shego informed the young man.

"Sorry," he apologized sheepishly. He was obviously torn between being a responsible adult and, well, just seeing something that he thought was totally cool. Those girls were great scientists in his opinion, especially since he knew that they had taken care of most of the construction of their projects.

"Well, who wins?" Raziya and Jayden both asked the astonished judges, who were still gawking at the runaway projects, even though they were deactivated and not moving.

"Oh, this should be good," Mayah said to Bokuden, who could only nod in agreement.

"Um…we're going to have to disqualify you girls for destroying other projects," the teacher-judge informed the pair.

"Damn it," Jayden and Mayah muttered. Mayah had said it because a disqualification with a sound reason was not going to get a charge out of her friends.

As expected, Raziya and Jayden accepted that they had been disqualified for ruining everyone else's projects, even if they were not as good as the girls believed their projects to be. They understood that there were consequences when they broke rules, especially rules that made sense. Jayden even went so far as to apologize to several classmates without having to be told to do so. It was a soft side to her that most of the teachers were not totally used to seeing, although many of the students that knew her knew that she was nice underneath all of the craziness that she and her friends brought in their wake. Raziya had to be coaxed into apologizing, though. In the end, Jayden and Raziya came out of the science fair best friends as always and just promised to beat the other at the next science fair.

--------------

Next time: school can be a dangerous and hurtful place; the kids are reminded of that.

A/N: the "chan" that Jayden uses when addressing Fukushima is an honorific in Japanese. It can imply affection and intimacy, but it's also sort of a cutesy way to address someone, like a child or a pet. It's not usually used when addressing boys or elders.


	43. Reason Fortythree: The horror

I don't own these characters. I don't own the original premise of this saga. I don't own the Care Bears. I do own my usual suspects.

Warning: nine chapters to go.

Reason Forty-three: The horror

_If only would could protect them from every harsh thing life throws at them. After all, they're actually very sweet kids underneath it all._

Shego walked into Jayden's room, looking to gather up any dirty clothes because she was going to do the laundry. She found Jayden lying on her bed with her head hanging off the side. She would have left things alone if only Jayden did not have her feet on the wall and was throwing a little handball against the wall too. Obviously, the child had gone insane; well, more insane than she had already been.

"Uh, mini-monster, if you want I can help you find it," Shego proposed with raised eyebrow.

"Find what, Mommy?" Jayden asked curiously, keeping her focus on the ball as it hit the wall.

"Your damn mind because you've obviously lost it. Stop throwing that fucking ball against my wall," Shego ordered with a vexed expression scrunching up her face.

Jayden laughed sheepishly and caught the ball one last time before dropping it to her floor. Shego turned her attention away from the girl now that she was not doing something crazy and began to pick up Jayden's clothes, which were thrown all around the messy room. Being in Jayden's room now was kind of like a trip down memory lane for Shego because it reminded her of when Kim lived in the loft space back when she had her condo. The room looked like a library had been dropped in it with so many books everywhere that she could barely see the floor.

"Wait a second," Shego said as if she only just realized something. "What the hell are you even doing here, Jade?" she inquired while turning back to her daughter. It was a beautiful spring day outside, so her daughter should have been out there with her friends, unleashing limitless chaos unto the world.

"Homework," Jayden grumbled while rolling her eyes.

"You've got homework you didn't do yet?" Shego asked in disbelief. Typically, Jayden breezed through any homework from school and most things that Kim assigned her to keep her mind sharp.

"Well, we've got to do these essays about our heroes and I don't know who to do. I mean, there's so many," Jayden explained with a sigh.

"How many?" Shego asked curiously, trying to help without coming right out and offering. She figured that if she had Jayden listed all of her heroes then she would see that it was not as long a list as she thought.

"Well, there's you, Mom, Smiley, Grandma, Mee-ma, Grandpa, Uncle Mego, Uncles Jim and Tim. Hell, even Aunt Betty and Uncle Ron and Aunt Yori—" Jayden would have grown through all of her friends' parents if given the chance, but her mother cut in.

"Okay, okay, okay, I see what you mean."

"Yeah, so I don't know who the hell to do the essay on," the child stated with a sigh. She put her hands up as if she surrendered.

"Well, I'll cut it down really short for you," Shego declared.

"Really? How?" Jayden asked with hope in her eyes. She would love to be able to get the assignment out of the way and then go outside with her friends.

"Well, you shouldn't do your friends' parents because they're obviously going to pick one of them and you don't want to have the same hero as someone else."

"Right." Jayden nodded in agreement with that logic. It made sense that her friends would pick their own parents, so she probably should stick with one of her parents or maybe one of her grandparents.

"And you should just do your Mom," Shego commented with a shrug, feeling the problem was easily solved right there.

"Why Mom?" the young woman asked curiously, her eyebrow high in the air.

"Because she does so much you should have no problem speeding through an essay about her and you can take your little ass outside before you do something crazier than throwing a damn ball against my wall," Shego explained, half-playing and half-serious. She really did not like Jayden being in the house when it was a nice day out because she preferred the girl get rid of her energy somewhere that she would not destroy a bunch of things that they cared about.

"But…you're my hero too, Mommy," Jayden said honestly. She did not want to do one mother and not the other.

The statement did make Shego smile, a strong, warm feeling spreading through her. It was quite the thing to know that she was a hero to her daughter. She doubted that there was a way to put her pride and happiness into words, but it was a special thing to be admired by her kids as she was. She especially liked that Jayden and Todd were so honest about it. They were never embarrassed to openly admit that they greatly admired their parents. It led Shego to believe that she and Kim were doing a very good parenting job with those two, even if they were a little wild and outrageous.

"I know, mini-monster, but it's just a school report. It's not something too serious," the pale woman replied.

"Yeah, but I want people to know I've got two really great mothers," Jayden informed her green-skinned parent with a bright look on her face.

"Well, you're just going to add more work on for yourself."

"I don't care! My mothers kick ass and everyone needs to know that!" Jayden proclaimed with an enthused grin.

Shego could not help laughing. "That they do, baby. Well, if you want to write more than you need to, I'm not going to stop you. Just get to it, so you can get the hell out of here," she commanded.

"Yes, ma'am!" Jayden answered with a grin and then she did something just plain odd, she gave Shego a mock salute, like Kim used to do.

Shego did not know what to make of the move, but decided that Jayden was just being silly and nothing more. She got up Jayden's dirty clothes while the girl went to her desk to start writing her essay; the desk was in the corner, opposite her bed. By the time her mother was done with her task, Jayden was already on her second page.

----(New day)

"I'm not going first," Raziya argued with her friends. They were sitting in class. They shared a round table desk; there were five such desks in the class and each sat four students at them.

"Me neither," Mayah scoffed.

"Why? What's the big deal?" Bokuden asked. Well, beyond their usual big deal anyway, he mentally commented.

"Well…I didn't exactly follow the rules for this essay," Raziya admitted, looking away for a moment.

"Me neither," Mayah said.

"Me three," Jayden added in.

As it turned out, all four friends did their essays on both of their parents. They were a bit surprised that Mayah had not done her essay on Todd, but then again, they were unaware about the turmoil of emotions that she had directed toward him now. They did not want to find out what kind of marked down grade they would get for not doing what the teacher asked. Hey, they liked getting good grades as much as the next kid, especially when they decided to do an assignment.

Beyond writing the essays, they had to present them to the class too, which was why they were all stating that they were not going first. They had learned to hate oral presentations, Jayden especially. They had the tendency of being accused of lying by classmates and a couple of times by teachers. They typically got revenge in a manner that did not involve physical fighting, but it was a hassle to have to go through all of the jeering and hollering when they knew that they were telling the truth.

As it turned out, they did not have to worry about volunteering because the teacher called on students. The little clique surprised their Language Arts' teacher by refusing to go up when he called on them, but after threats of failing grades for that part of the assignment, they stopped refusing. They did have a little meeting as to who was going first between them until the teacher put an end to that "nonsense" by calling Jayden up. Ah well, the friends thought, at least they would get the worst of things out of the way first.

"This'll end well, I'm sure," Mayah muttered sarcastically. Her friends only nodded in agreement. Their expressions were something similar to watching a train wreck as it was happening.

Jayden frowned as she stood before the class and had to explain who her heroes were and why. She went through her Mommy first, trying to get through everything before someone said something. She made it through Shego training officers for the Go City Bureau of Justice and how she sometimes still went out on assignments to bust bad guys. Once she got into the fact that her mother could make plasma come from her hands and how she used to be a cat burglar, which had learned from her uncles Wally, the class started up. She survived that round, but was only more nervous to talk about Kim now.

"How much more time do I have to still be up here?" Jayden asked the teacher.

"You've only done half the time. Come on, Jade, you're doing fine," the teacher assured her. He expected the students to get a little riled up, wanting to ask questions, but he did note that they had been close to calling Jayden an outright liar.

The raven-haired girl gulped. But then, she steeled herself by reminding herself that no one in her family would be afraid of a little oral presentation, not even her jerky Uncle Hego; despite the fact that he got along with Todd, he was not as open to dealing politely with Jayden. So, she pressed on and went into why her Mom was also her hero.

Talking about Kim brought a mixed reaction from the students, but they mostly could not believe it when Jayden told them that her Mom had a television show based on her life "Meg Nificent." That was the high point of incredulous for the class, not the fact that Kim was an adventurer or had figured out how to cure some of the worst snake bites ever, but that she had a television show. That was the high point because a lot of the kids watched the show and liked it, but they did not know it was based on a real person, let alone Jayden's mom.

"Oi, makes me glad I can't talk about my mom and dad being ninjas," Bokuden muttered as he covered his ears from the wild din that the class bringing up.

"She clears the way for us to talk about normal stuff at least," Mayah commented, sounding a bit grumpy. They actually thought that compared to Jayden's mom, the rest of their parents were normal, no matter what other people would like them to believe.

Jayden was surprised that the students did not say negative things when she mentioned her mother's show. Instead, they begged her for things like autographs and free stuff from the show. She was happy for the reaction because it was so out of the norm. But then again, someone said something that made the oral presentation just like everyone that she had given in her life about her parents.

"What about your dad?" someone asked.

"I don't have a dad," Jayden answered in a grumble. It was not something that she was shamed of, but she knew what was coming next and she really did not feel like getting into that matter for the umpteenth time with a schoolmate.

"How do you have two moms and no dad?" someone else inquired.

And then a new one came. "Your parents are gay!" someone declared with a laugh. Apparently, the proclamation was an insult.

"So?" Jayden roared in anger. She knew what "gay" was, as kids learned a lot of things in junior high that was not on the standard curriculum. She did not see what was wrong with it; her mothers loved each other very much and that was what should count in her opinion.

"I heard that kids with gay parents grow up to be gay."

"So?" Jayden barked, a fire starting to burn in her typically cheerful olive eyes.

"What the hell kinda logic is that?" Mayah wondered aloud with a perplexed look on her face. She had never heard such a thing before and she could not figure out how that worked. If gay parents had gay kids, did that mean the Possibles and Isabel were gay? She decided to stop thinking about it right then and there before she got a headache.

"I dunno. Razi?" Bokuden asked since Raziya was actually the most logic prone out of all of them, which was odd considering the fact that she had the mind of an artist when left to think on her own.

"Um…" Raziya tried to figure that one out, tapping her index finger against her chin. It was not computing for her either. "No, that doesn't work out for me. Jade, does that work out?" she called to the front of the room.

"What gay parents have gay kids?" Jayden inquired and her friends nodded. "Not from what I can tell," she answered. She had never really bothered to look at any study or even her own life to see if that was true. What the hell did it matter anyway? She did know it was sort of a junk statement for the simple fact that her brother was not gay.

"You're gay!" a student said and Jayden knew that was meant an insult.

"Oh, that's just the fuck it!" Jayden hollered in a fury. No one was going to insult her and her mothers in the same breath, which she took the "you're gay" comment as; the student was insinuating that being gay was a bad thing.

Her friends knew that Jayden was about to do something that could get her into serious trouble, so they moved to stop her. They all tackled her at lightning speed, creating a dog pile at the front of the room. The teacher wisely cut Jayden's presentation there and then got the class back in order for the other segments. He quickly found that he should not have started the friends off with Jayden leading the way because emotions were now running high between everyone in the room and the other three were hostile as they gave their presentations, waiting for someone to snap at them.

Bokuden made it through his presentation with little harassment. He explained that his father was his hero and that he owned a cool restaurant. He did not go into anything too deep because he knew that their classmates could pull some rather ridiculous comments out of their asses if given the chance. He did not want to have to crack someone's skull, so he was careful of his words.

It was not too surprising that Mayah was the one that popped right in half when giving her presentation. One of the students made a shockingly racist comment when Mayah explained that her father was a wealthy black man; a kid actually asked if he sold drugs. Mayah's facial expression did not change as she stopped talking, as if that was part of some divine plan of hers, marched over to the kid and punched him so hard that she broke his nose with one blow. He fell to the floor crying.

"No, my father doesn't fucking sell drugs, you stupid bastard," Mayah answered the question while the teacher got up for the second time.

The rest of the presentations were wisely cancelled; only Raziya was left and after that "drug" comment, it was probably the best that she did not get up and start talking about her successful parents considering the students had already gone out of their way to make fun of gay and black people. The teacher did not want to know what they might do when Raziya undoubtedly got to talking about her wheel-chair bound father and her African-American mother.

The clique was thoroughly insulted by everything that happened in class, though. They never suspected that junior high school was a place where idiots and assholes gathered. They were planning to get their classmates back and not in their usual clever, mischievous way either. They were going to wait in the hall and just kick the asses of the few students that had made fun of their parents or their friends' parents. The teacher seemed to know the score and took them to the principal before they even had the chance to do anything.

"Okay, we're getting in trouble for shit that not only wasn't our fault," Mayah started and Jayden finished the idea for her.

"And we didn't even do anything yet!" the ebony-haired girl declared. Maybe "yet" was the key word as it was obvious that they were going to do something if only the teacher had not stepped in.

It was explained to the quartet that they were not in trouble, even though they were skeptical on that. After all, when was the last time they went to the principal for not being in trouble? The sense of problems blowing their way was only heightened when their parents were called up there.

"Damn it," Mayah and Jayden grumbled heatedly while Bokuden and Raziya just sighed.

In actuality, the kids were not in trouble. Their parents had been called up to have the situation explained to them, so that they could address the issues with the kids. Their teacher and the principal could understand why they had gotten so angry and why they probably wanted revenge; they also knew that those kids could get some wicked revenge if someone did not step in.

"What about the other punks? You're gonna do something about them?" Shego asked the principal after everything was explained to her and the other parents.

"I'm definitely going to talk to their parents too. I'm not interested in having such talk in my school. This is a place where every student should feel comfortable," the principal answered.

Shego nodded, seemingly satisfied with that response. The principal did want to talk to Betty and Dahntay alone since Mayah had actually injured a student. He was reluctant to suspend Mayah, which the parents more sensed than were told. The principal did not suspend their daughter, but he did suggest that they try to get her temper under control. After all, he knew the group pretty well by now considering that they were in his office at least two a week, he was well aware that Mayah had a short fuse.

Betty and Dahntay had actually given up on trying to get Mayah to have better control of her anger. They would talk to her and seem to get through to her. Then she would surprise Betty at work one day and see her mother flipping out on people, so it just made Betty seem like a hypocrite and Mayah felt like it was all right to get upset with people she thought to be morons. Her mother proved that time and time again.

--------------

"Hey, Mom," Jayden said as she and Kim sat in the living room building a house of cards. Well, it was a house a while ago, now it was about five decks worth of tears when it inevitably fell.

"Uh-huh?" Kim inquired with a look of sheer concentration on face as she worked on the top of their card castle.

"How come I didn't get in trouble for what happened today?" the girl asked curiously. "Is it because I wasn't the one that broke the kid's nose?"

"No, although that helped."

"So, how come I didn't get in trouble? Or am I going to get in trouble soon?" Jayden asked suspiciously. Her Mommy was known to let her relax before striking her with a punishment like an attacking rattlesnake.

"You're not going to get in trouble."

"Am I gonna get a reward then? Like Mommy making spaghetti?" Jayden said in a hopeful tone.

"No, I'm not making you spaghetti!" Shego called from in the kitchen. "And why the hell would I make you spaghetti just because you didn't punch someone?" she inquired.

"Because I coulda punched someone, but didn't!" the child replied, as if it was obvious.

"What the hell kinda logic is that?" Shego inquired, although she was thankful her mother was not around because Isabel certainly would have been pointing out that Shego used to say things like that when she was younger.

"I coulda done something bad, but didn't," Jayden argued.

"Okay, well, how about this one, does your Mom reward you when you could've done something scientific, but didn't?" Shego countered.

"Hmm…"

"Do I ever reward you when you could've cleaned your room, but didn't?"

"Damn it. Then how come I'm not getting in trouble?" Jayden inquired and she was about to be overly dramatic about things, but she was near the card house and was she not looking knock it down. She was hoping that her Mom knocked it over, so she could laugh and not be at fault.

"You want to be in trouble, mini-monster? No dessert for the night," Shego declared.

"No!" the child howled.

"Can I have her dessert?" Todd asked, popping into the kitchen when he was supposed to be up in his room studying.

"No!" Jayden objected.

"Jade, stop yelling. Smiles, go back and study for your finals," Shego ordered. The whole house was out of control…well, not the whole house. Kim was surprisingly behaving herself. She hoped that Kim explained to Jayden why she did not get in trouble, so they could let the whole subject drop.

"Then why?" Jayden whined. She beat her brother to the punch, who was going to whine about being sick of studying, but he retreated for the moment since it seemed like Jayden had the 'rents going right now.

"Princess, will you please handle this one before I come out there and stick a serving spoon down our daughter's throat?" Shego replied.

"You happy now, Jade? You got on Mommy's nerves, mission accomplished," Kim said to the child, trying her best not to smile. She did not want to encourage the girl to be annoying.

Jayden grinned. "It's fun," she giggled.

"I know," Kim agreed with the girl and laughed a bit too.

"Okay, but really, why didn't I get in trouble? I mean, we were gonna totally kick our classmates asses and I know you guys know that, so just tell me why," Jayden requested.

"Well, we just understand why you and your friends got so mad. It wasn't nice of your classmates to say such things to you. Sorry that you had to go through that, kiddo," the redhead apologized with sorrow in her voice.

"It's not your fault, Mom. They're just stupid. They called me gay…" Jayden grumbled, looking away because she was kind of uncomfortable saying that. It was not that she was upset with the accusation, but the fact that it was supposed to be a terrible insult bothered her.

Kim was not sure what to say to that. She left her part of the card house and put her arms around Jayden. The little girl returned the embrace and Kim lifted Jayden up. She walked into the kitchen with the hope that Shego could assist her in making their daughter feel better.

"What happened?" Shego asked when she caught sight of the pair, Kim looking slightly distraught while Jayden appeared to be fully into the emotion.

"Jade's a bit upset over what happened," Kim answered.

"What? What's wrong?" Shego inquired while walking over to the duo and rubbing Jayden's back to help ease her nerves.

"A girl said I was gay because you're gay and she made it seem like a really bad thing. Why the hell is it that?" Jayden begged to know. She just did not understand why people seemed to get hostile with her whenever she brought up her mothers. They were good parents and made her feel like the sun could not rise if she did not want it to and, yet, people made that seem like a bad thing. Why? They did everything that parents were supposed to do in her opinion, so why did everyone always have something negative to say about them?

"Aw, baby, sometimes people are just jerks," Shego commented. It was the best way that she could explain things.

Jayden nodded because that was not the first time her Mommy said that to her. She even agreed with it, but sometimes, things just hurt. She was feeling better though, just from being near her mothers. They were good parents, she reminded herself. They were some of the best from what she could tell.

Now that Jayden was feeling a bit better, she considered asking her mothers a question about the other issue that came up in class and not the racist one. She was going to ask about why she did not have a father, but she held off. She knew more instinctively than anything else that it was a big subject to broach and she was not in the mood for that. She just wanted to take the moment and be happy with having her mothers there for her.

----(New day)

Jayden and her friends were sitting outside in the school courtyard for lunch. They had all calmed down from their little incident from a few days ago with their classmates, but they had alienated themselves a little bit more because of it. They did not care. It seemed to them that the more they knew about people their age, the less that they wanted to be around them. Too often the world that they occupied during weekdays seemed backwards to them.

The group were sitting on the ground and leaning on the side of the school building, not paying their peers any mind as they ran around the courtyard playing all sorts of games. They were more interested in having lunch. They all pulled out their lunchboxes; Jayden still carried a Care Bear lunchbox. It was doubtful that Jayden was ever going to outgrow her love for Care Bears.

"You got tuna with mustard?" Bokuden asked Jayden as soon as she popped the top of her lunchbox. It felt like a "mustard day" to him, or maybe it was just what he hoped.

"You need to start bringing your own sandwiches," Raziya scolded their ninja friend.

"Why? She's got me," Bokuden replied as Jayden handed him a spare sandwich. She had her Mommy pack her an extra sandwich because Bokuden was always bumming lunch off of her. She had no problem trading sometimes, but every now and then she would like to eat her own tuna sandwich.

"She needs to stop having you," Mayah remarked while eating some juicy red grapes that her mother had packed for her.

"Why? She likes to trade the onigiri for the sandwich, right?" Bokuden asked Jayden while handing her his rice ball.

"Yup!" Jayden grinned. She did not see why Bokuden did not eat his onigiri more often, although sometimes he showed up with a double lunch like her. So, sometimes, they both had a sandwich and a rice ball.

"Hey, look at this," Raziya said while pointing out into the yard with a spoon that was in her hand. She was eating a cup of applesauce with the spoon.

"What the hell is this clown up to now?" Jayden wondered aloud as they watched Katsuro Fukushima wander out into the seventh graders. He was not supposed to be out in the courtyard with the kids that were not his grade level, but he often ignored that. He seemed to like the attention that he got as the seventh graders did worship him.

"They're like flies," Mayah commented as their classmates flocked to Katsuro.

"And he's a piece of a shit," Jayden remarked with a laugh.

It was almost like Katsuro heard Jayden's comment and he turned to the crew. He walked over to them and reached down, snatching away Jayden's onigiri. He shoved it in his mouth before she could do anything aside for look incredulous. He chuckled in a sinister manner and started walking off.

Raziya glanced at Bokuden, who was sitting at the end of their little line up and next to her. She wordlessly handed him her applesauce cup and he chucked it without saying a word. The snack cracked Katsuro right in the back of the neck. The Japanese boy lurched forward when the mess hit him and the friends burst out laughing.

"Who threw that?" Fukushima demanded to know as he turned around to face the younger group. His onyx eyes lit with fury.

"What's the matter, you don't like being sweet, Katsu-chan?" Jayden inquired through her chuckles.

"It was you, wasn't it!" Katsuro huffed as he marched over to Jayden and grabbed her by her jacket collar. She did not even try to stop him, having much too much fun laughing in his face over it.

"I wish it was me," Jayden replied, still shamelessly laughing in his face.

"It was me," Bokuden admitted while standing up. Raziya and Mayah followed suit to back him up.

Katsuro frowned. "Keep standing up for your little girlfriend, freshman—" he was cut off before he could say anything that he wanted to be intimidating.

"My friend. She's my friend!" Bokuden stated plainly. It kind of annoyed him that Katsuro made it a habit to call Jayden his girlfriend whenever he came to her defense. He never even thought of Jayden like that and he figured that he was not going to start.

"Annoying friend," Raziya added.

"The annoying friend that you really need to let go of," Mayah finished it off.

"Or else what?" Katsuro inquired and everyone in the schoolyard wanted to hear that one. Yes, they all knew that Jayden and her friends were a wild bunch, but they also happened to know that Katsuro was a very cool martial artist, which was why he had such a fan club amongst the seventh graders.

"Probably this," Jayden commented and she wasted no time giving him a good hit to the gut.

Katsuro coughed in surprise and pain as her little fist connected with his stomach. He let her go and Jayden finally stopped smiling. She turned to her friends, who all looked pretty damned shocked. She knew why they looked like that because she felt the same way. She had just hit a classmate, something that they were never supposed to do.

"Um…you think my mothers'll let this one slide like before?" Jayden asked her friends with a pathetic, lopsided smile on her face.

"Probably not," the three answered honestly at the same time. They understood that before was totally different circumstances compared to now.

"What do I do?" Jayden asked.

"Run!" the friends all suggested and they scattered before a teacher came out and found out what happened.

Katsuro Fukushima was still bent over in agony when the four friends fled the scene. He was fuming from what just happened. Not just that because that little pest Jayden had gotten the better of him or because Bokuden had hit him with the apple sauce, but also because he had been embarrassed in front of so many admirers. He could not stand such disrespect and disgrace. He was going to have to get them back.

--------------

Next time: the kids are pushed to the edge by Katsuro.


	44. Reason Fortyfour: Rites of Passage

I don't own these characters. I also don't own the original premise that this saga is based on. I do own Jayden, Mayah, Bokuden, Raziya, Aztek, Nobunaga, Romah, and Chyna.

Warning: Eight chapters to go.

Reason Forty-four: Rites of Passage

_Should we be proud or nervous with the way they handle certain situations?_

Jayden and her friends exited school, ready to go home and get on their parents' nerves. They liked to travel on their own now instead of getting picked up, even though a parent did have to go get Aztek, Nobunaga, Romah, and Chyna from the elementary school of Roosevelt Academy. They were just exercising some independence and their parents respected that, provided they did not get into too much trouble on their way home, which was starting to change.

"You guys aren't going home yet, are you?" Katsuro Fukushima asked the group as he stood in front of the four of them. They had hardly made it ten feet away from the school.

"This guy again," Raziya groaned while throwing up her hands in frustration. She wished that he would get a new hobby.

"Oi," Bokuden muttered and held his forehead while shaking his head in a tired manner.

"I wish he'd get out of our asses already," Jayden commented with an exhausted sigh. Mayah nodded in agreement since the younger girl had said the exact same thing that she was thinking.

Katsuro had been bugging the crew for a while now. At first, he started out just hating Jayden for some reason. Mayah and Raziya liked to think that it was just because Jayden was annoying, but he hated her from the first moment that he saw her. Through that, Katsuro started to hate Bokuden because the blonde boy was always the first to stand up for Jayden. Bokuden was typically the first to stand up for any of the girls if someone tried to play the bully while the girls stood back to just watch one of their counterparts teach the obviously stupid bully a valuable lesson.

The more Katsuro learned about Bokuden, the more he seemed to detest the half-Japanese boy. Eventually, Katsuro had just worked things up to the point where he equally loathed Jayden and Bokuden. Mayah and Raziya did not see how that was even possible; Bokuden could never be on the same level of annoying as Jayden, after all. Either way, Mayah and Raziya were not going to sit around and let Katsuro try to push Bokuden or Jayden around.

So, now the routine seemed to be every few days when the group of four were trying to get home after school, Katsuro would show up to harass them. He would have friends with him, kids that were his age and even older. There were usually at least four people with him; today there were seven people with him. He was trying to provoke the group into fighting, but they had been dodging that by running their mouths for a little while and suddenly running off in opposite directions. It worked wonders, leaving the crew to believe that they were dealing with idiots when it came to Katsuro and his friends.

"We don't have time to play with you today, Katsu-chan," Jayden informed the older boy, waving her pinky at him just to taunt him more. It was little things like that that really rubbed him the wrong way. She just totally and thoroughly disrespected him all the time, getting a kick out of it since she believed that he was a jerk.

"No, you're just gonna run away like the cowards you are," Katsuro declared, practically spitting in disgust at them. He thought that knocks at their bravery and honor was a good way to get to them; he did not know them very well.

"Nah, we just have homework to do," Raziya replied with a nonchalant shrug. She had to admit that she was getting sick of the Japanese boy and she wanted to hit him by now. He was picking on Jayden and Bokuden for no good reason and senselessness just bothered her.

"Tons of it," Mayah groaned painfully, rolling her eyes. They had been hit with projects for three major subjects and they wanted to get those things out of the way.

"So, just get out of the way," Jayden ordered quite forcefully, her face tense from her seriousness.

"No, you will face your punishment," Katsuro proclaimed in a furious tone while pointing an authoritative finger at Jayden.

"Please, Katsu-chan," Jayden practically sang in a cutesy tone while waving her pinky at him once more.

"Yeah, Katsu-chan," Mayah and Raziya chimed in, mimicking their friend because they could see how much it really got to Fukushima. They made kissy-faces at him as they spoke.

Katsuro's face flushed bright red from his anger and his mouth twisted into a snarl like a blood-thirsty demon. How dare those girls, those freshmen, mock him in such away in front of his companions! He would teach them all a lesson that they would never forget if they would just stand still long enough. And he had just the thing to make them stand still.

"You're not going anywhere!" Katsuro proclaimed and he snapped his finger.

The friends all flexed their muscles, getting ready to get into fighting stances. They did not relax when a boy to Katsuro's right handed him a scroll. Katsuro opened the school and began reading from it. The friends realized too late what was going on.

"Ninja magic," Bokuden growled as he tried to move, but found that he was stuck in place. His whole body was ready to pounce as his expression transformed, showing his rare fury, but there was nothing that he could do.

"You cheating bastards!" Jayden snarled heatedly as she also attempted to move, but was frozen where she stood. She continued to struggle anyway.

"Now, to teach you four your places," Katsuro said to the crew, who were all cemented to the ground by magic.

"We'll get you back for this," Mayah vowed with a snarl tugging at her lip. She was making fists so tight that her short nails were biting into her palm.

"I doubt it," Katsuro commented. "These two are mine," he said, motioning to Bokuden and Jayden. His friends did not object.

The spell did not last long, but by the time it wore off, the quartet had been worked over to the point where they could hardly hold up their hands to give up a proper defense. Their offense was sluggish at best and they ended up being left on the ground when everything was said and done. The friends lay bleeding in the dirt at the side of the school, sucking air into their burning lungs. They had been beaten. It was unacceptable. Jayden was plotting their revenge already and it was not going to be subtle.

"You little fools now know that you're beneath us. You and your weak styles," Katsuro said to the fallen four. He might as well have spat on them from the way his voice sounded, showing his disgust with them. His onyx eyes shone with rising pride because of his actions.

"Don't insult our styles," Jayden warned him in a dangerous tone. She was not going to forgive anyone bad mouthing the styles that her mothers taught her, styles that had served her well throughout her life. Her friends felt exactly the same way about their styles, which was why they were all trying to climb to their feet to teach those jerks a lesson in manners. They could hardly make it to their knees, though.

"Monkey kung-fu reigns supreme and you're all just pretenders. You probably watch too many karate movies," Katsuro mocked them, smirking as he spoke. He seemed to feel pretty good about himself with being able to put them on the ground.

"Keep talking," Mayah told him because she knew that Jayden's mind was already coming up with horrible, horrible plans and the more he spoke, the worse the plan would be. She was all for that.

"Don't come out of your places anymore. You stay away from me and everyone that's under me," Katsuro ordered while making powerful motions with his hand, pointing down at the fallen friends as if he was condemning them.

"Don't worry. When this is all over, we won't be near you because you'll fucking run in terror when you see us," Jayden declared seriously. She sounded so much like Shego that it would have frightened anyone that knew them.

"Don't think so highly of yourself, brat," Katsuro barked with a frown. One of his friends seemed to agree with him and kicked Jayden in the side for her insolence. She coughed in pain as the blow landed.

"Coward," Bokuden growled when he saw the treatment that Jayden was getting. His words earned him a stomping too.

"Don't let us see you downtown either or we'll fuck you up again," the ring-leader of the bullies warned the crew.

Jayden and Mayah chuckled, thinking the exact same thing it would seem. They were going to be downtown soon. But first, they were going to have to explain their beating to their parents. Oh, that was an interesting talk for them all.

--------------

Raziya was actually a bit nervous to go home looking the way that she did. Her parents had never seen her truly beaten up before. Yes, she got injured sparring and playing around with her friends, but she was never seriously hurt. She imagined that her parents would not take it well. She was right.

"Oh, my god! Razi, what happened to you!" Monique practically cried as she caught sight of her daughter.

"Got into a fight," Raziya grumbled with a shrug, trying to downplay what happened. That was pretty evident; she either got into a fight or fell off of a high-speed train, her mother figured.

"You got into a fight? How?" Monique inquired, even though she had a few guesses. After all, her daughter did not hang around the sanest or even most even-tempered girls. She doubted that it helped that her daughter did not have the most patience in the world and was just as dangerous as her friends. And to top things off, Raziya knew how to fight just like her friends.

"This stupid kid that hates Jade for no reason beat us all up."

"One kid?" Monique asked in disbelief. If that was true, she bet that the other three in the group were going to be punished by their parents for allowing one kid to mess them up if they looked anything like Raziya.

"No, it was a bunch of kids, but they were there because of this one kid that hates Jade for no reason."

"The kid hates Jade, but beat you all up?" Monique said curiously as she motioned for her daughter to go to the bathroom so they could get to cleaning her off.

"I don't know how to explain it, Mommy. The kid just hates Jade. It's like he didn't even give her a chance to get on his nerves. He just hates her, so he tries to pick on her and when he picks in her…" Raziya did not need to finish her sentence for her mother to know what she meant.

Monique sighed as she began to clean her daughter's wounds. She was not sure what she should say to what happened. She was glad that Raziya and her friends stood up for her each other. But, she did not like that such actions might lead to Raziya coming home looking like she was in a barroom brawl. She knew that could not tell Raziya to run if things escalated again, so she did not know what to say.

"Don't worry, Mommy. This is the first and more than likely the last time something like this will ever happen," Raziya promised soundly. She and her friends were way too upset to allow for such a major ass-kicking to every happen again.

"I just don't know what to do with you," Monique muttered as she worked on her child's wounds. She hoped that Felix would know what to say when he got home.

Felix was shocked to see Raziya covered in bandages when he got home. He heard the same story that Monique did and found himself just as speechless as his wife. All he could offer was that it was good that she stood up and stood with her friends. She should always do that, he told her, because they knew that her friends would always stand up and stand with her.

--------------

Mayah was going to make it a point to never come home if she ever got beat up again, not that she had any plans in life to get beat up. Her mother was surprisingly fussy over her cuts and bruises. Her brothers immediately burst into roaring laughs while her sister just seemed confused. Chyna actually looked ready to burst into tears for Mayah.

"Beat it, you two!" Betty ordered as she took Mayah to the bathroom to help clean her up. She was yelling at her sons.

Aztek and Romah did not comply, but the door was shut in their faces anyway. They stayed in the hallway, dying of laughter. They were howling against the door, banging on the walls, making sure that Mayah heard.

"I'm going to totally kill you two!" Mayah hollered at them as she took a seat.

"Wha happened?" Chyna asked with concern as she grabbed onto her big sister's shirt sleeve. She still looked ready to burst into tears, not knowing how to take her big sister's bloodied appearance. It was a first and she hoped that it was the only time that she had to see it.

Mayah sucked her teeth and rolled her eyes. "We got sneak attacked."

"Oh, so all of you look like this, huh?" Betty inquired as she applied antiseptic to Mayah's cuts.

"Ah! Mommy!" Mayah complained, pulling her arm back. "You've gotta warn me before you do that!"

Betty laughed a bit. "Big, bad girl like you can't take a little pain?" she teased, smirking a bit as she spoke.

Mayah frowned. "Anyway, yes, we all look like this."

"Amazing. You all got beat up. I'm hoping it wasn't one person," Betty commented while continuing to nurse her daughter's wounds.

"Nah, it was a group. This jackass that hates us started something. I figure we're going to finish it," Mayah stated in a cold tone.

Betty could only say one thing to that. "Be careful."

"Yeah, careful," Chyna agreed, still holding onto her sister's sleeve.

Mayah looked down at Chyna and smiled at her while nodding. She would be as careful as the situation allowed, as always. She just could not forgive what happened that day and she knew that her friends were the same.

"But, kick butt too," Chyna added in with her own smile.

"Definitely," the elder sister agreed. Betty only shook her head while retrieving some bandages for the cuts.

--------------

"So, this boy Katsuro just picks on you for no reason?" Yori asked Bokuden in puzzled voice as she bandaged up the boy's wounds. The family was cramped into the bathroom as first-aid seemed to be a spectacular's sport.

"Well, really, he picks on Jade and then he picks on me for jumping in," the blonde child explained.

"Well, why does he pick on Jade? Did she do something to him?" Ron asked curiously. He was just there for moral support and someone for Nobunaga to climb on it would seem. He would not put it passed Jayden to have done something to Katsuro, even though he doubted that she would have done it on purpose.

"No, she didn't do anything to him. He just picks on her," Bokuden answered with a shrug because he could not explain better than that.

"Well, how did he get you like this? You said he does Tai Shing Pek Kwar, right?" Yori asked. She thought that Bokuden should be able to handle that considering the fact that he practiced the style too and he was quite good at it.

"Yeah, he does. He got the drop on us this time and used ninja magic to keep us from moving for like two minutes. So, they pretty much kicked our butts for two minutes without us being able to do anything about it," Bokuden informed his family.

"You got beat up!" Nobunaga chuckled while pointing at his brother and swinging from his father's outreached arm.

"It was because of magic! That's doesn't count!" the elder brother argued. "Right?" he asked his parents with hope in his voice.

"Well, actually you should be prepared for all sorts of ninja attacks, Bo. Why didn't you counter him?" Yori asked curiously.

"Well…I didn't expect him to know magic. I don't know much, after all and he's only a year older than me. Besides, he read it from a scroll," Bokuden answered with a bit of contempt. It was clear from his voice that his opinion of Katsuro was only declining and he did not think much of reading magic from a scroll rather than knowing a spell by heart.

"Maybe we should increase Bo's training," Ron suggested. He figured it could not be good for their son's self-esteem to be beaten up by someone that the boy seemed certain he could defeat in a fair fight.

"So he can beat up this Katsuro boy?" Yori inquired with a craned eyebrow.

Ron, knowing that question was a trap, decided to go the funny route with the hope that his wife would not call his bluff. "No, so they can mediate together and talk about their differences peacefully," he answered.

Yori glared at her husband; obviously, she saw past his joke. "Martial arts are not for beating people up. They're for discipline and—"

Nobunaga cut in. "Winning fights!" he grinned.

"Ma, I know what you're gonna say and everything, but I do have to defend my honor and my friends. We can't let this just go," Bokuden said with surprising seriousness.

"And what do you plan on doing about it?" Yori asked curiously. Ron was interested in hearing that one too.

"I don't know yet, but I can't let Katsuro just pick on us like this. We can't let him just get away with this," Bokuden said and his parents knew deep down that he was right, still they attempted to convince him otherwise.

--------------

"The fuck happened to you, kiddo? You look like your Mom looks after getting her ass kicked on a mission or when I knock her out on the mats," Shego remarked as she poked her head in the bathroom to see Kim tending to Jayden's injures.

"Jade got beat up," Todd teased from his bedroom, which was down the hall.

"Shut the hell up, Smiles!" Jayden hollered in a fury, letting Shego know that he spoke the truth. It was the only way to explain her anger.

"You got beat up? What happened, you took on the whole school or something?" Shego asked, or so she hoped. If only one person could make their daughter look like she went to Hell and back, then she was taking over training Jayden point blank and she was not letting the girl go until Jayden could beat her in a real match.

"Don't worry about it," Jayden grumbled. She was not going to let her defeat go unpunished. She was going to show that she and her friends were way better than Katsuro and his goon squad.

"Don't get into any trouble, monster," Kim said to the girl.

"I won't," Jayden promised.

"Yeah, right," Shego remarked with a scoff. Like Jayden could possibly let an offense such as being beaten up go.

"I'm not gonna do anything against the rules, so why should I get in trouble?" Jayden commented with a clever glint in her eyes.

Shego chuckled. Hey, if the baby was not going to break her rules, she did not have a problem with anything. She did wonder how Jayden was going to do anything without breaking the rules, though. She supposed that she was going to have to wait and find out, provided her goody-goody spouse did not try to talk Jayden out of things.

Kim did try to talk their daughter out of doing anything rash, but Jayden was set in her thinking; she liked to believe that neither of her mothers would let such an offense go, even if Kim wanted her to believe otherwise. Nope, at the moment, the high road be damned. Her friends were right there with her on that, especially since they were not going to be breaking any of their parents' rules, which they believed meant that they would not get in trouble.

----(New day)

The usual quartet were hanging out in the living room of Mayah's house. They were going over their revenge. Jayden was in the lead on the plan with the others adding in, especially on parts that they wanted to do. They were interrupted when Aztek came in, collapsing on Raziya.

"Ow! You clumsy ox!" Raziya barked while moving, so that Aztek would fall to the floor.

"Whaddaya guys doing?" Aztek asked curiously. "Sounds like you're talking about a fight," he commented.

"It's none of your goddamn business!" Mayah informed her brother while shoving him away from the group.

"But, I wanna fight too!" Aztek whined and trying to resist his big sister, but it was not working.

"Yeah, and we'll let you and two minutes into it, you'll see a hotdog stand and walk away," Raziya commented with an irked scoff.

Aztek was silent for a moment. "What kinda stuff would I be able to put on this hotdog?" he asked curiously.

Mayah and Raziya growled. They looked at each other to determine which one of them was going to clobber Aztek for being himself. They silently decided after a couple of seconds that they both would hit him and they brained him right on the head. He groaned; damned girls, they hit hard.

"Now, go away," Mayah ordered firmly her little brother while pointing out of the living room.

"That's why you got beat up the other day," Aztek grumbled, turning his nose up to his sister.

"And that's why you got beat up now. Now, go the hell away," Mayah countered in a huff while shoving the younger Director-Jones out of the area.

"Screw you guys. This is boring anyway," Aztek said in a dismissive tone while marching off to go get into some other trouble. There were snacks in the kitchen that he could eat and maybe throw some flour around for the hell of it. He and Romah liked how flour made it look like it snowed in the kitchen. Of course their mother did not appreciate it as much as they did.

"Everything's boring to him," Raziya said in a disapproving manner while shaking her head.

"Yeah, let's just get back to the matter at hand. Our redemption," Jayden said. The friends all nodded and went back to what they were doing. Everything was made all the sweeter since they knew for a fact now that they would not be breaking any of their parents' rules; out of every rule that they had, there was no "no fighting in the street" rule. Amazing.

----(New day)

"You sure it's down this way?" Jayden asked Mayah as she and the older girl walked down the street. They were looking around to make sure that they were going the right way. They were in casual clothing since they were not in school.

"I think I know how to read directions," Mayah answered in a "duh" type of voice.

"Are you sure you got the right directions?" the raven-haired girl inquired curiously, no malice in her tone.

"It's not that hard to look something like this up on the computer," Mayah replied in an irked tone.

"Whatever," Jayden said, sucking her teeth.

"Look, there it is," Mayah said while pointing across the street at a building.

Jayden turned to see where her friend was pointing and saw that she was telling the truth; their destination was right across the street. They checked for cars and then went to the building. They read the advertisement in the window, proclaiming the school "Lord Monty Fiske's school, master of Tai Shing Pek Kwar." They looked at each other, both looking skeptical considering they knew a couple of masters of Tai Shing Pek Kwar and they knew students of the style too. From what they could tell with Katsuro and his goons, their teacher might have been a master, but he could not teach all that well.

"What are you two geeks doing around here?" Katsuro inquired as he walked up behind the pair. They immediately turned around at the sound of his voice.

"Katsu-chan," Jayden said with a grin on her face. Mayah elbowed her in the side.

"Don't make him mad again," Mayah cautioned her friend. She had to hold back a disgusted shudder as she spoke.

"Didn't I say don't call me that?" Katsuro growled in anger.

"See, you're gonna get us beat up again," Mayah hissed at Jayden, as if she was angry with her friend.

"Indeed she is," Katsuro confirmed with a deviant smirk. "Get in there," he ordered and he shoved the pair into the school before they had a chance to react.

They stumbled into the front of the school and collapsed to the floor. They looked up when they heard laughing. They got to see that Katsuro had pushed them in plain sight of well over a dozen other boys. They recognized the boys as fellows from their school that hung around Katsuro like he was the president and they were the secret service. Okay, so it seemed they all went to the same martial arts' school. The girls could not help wondering if being a jerk was part of the curriculum.

"I thought we told you not to show your faces around here," one of the boys said in a threatening tone to the girls.

"Yeah, funny thing that," Mayah commented. She was glad that she did not have to keep up the "nervous/frightened" act anymore. She felt dirty having to lull Katsuro into a false sense of security.

"We've got some problems with listening, especially to dick-weeds," Jayden remarked as they stood up.

"Well then, we'll teach you to listen again and again," Katsuro said in menacingly low tone while making a fist.

"Well, we're all ears," Mayah replied while cracking her knuckles.

"And claws," Jayden added while slipping on a pair of black gloves. She now had a talon on each finger. The palms were padded to allow her to make a tight fist if she chose to.

"You think we're scared of you?" Katsuro inquired, almost as he was offended by them considering such a thing. His lip was curled in fury and revulsion directed at the girls.

"No, but you will be in a minute when you realize that we're totally in control of this situation," Jayden answered with a half-smile.

"And that there's no way out," Raziya remarked from behind Katsuro, causing him to turn around in shock.

"When did you…?" he asked in surprise.

"They're good distractions when they wanna be. And now, this place is on lockdown," Raziya replied as she pulled out a slender controller and hit a button it. A mental plate slid down over the door and windows of the school.

"You think we're scared of you?" Katsuro inquired in a skeptical tone.

"No," Mayah said.

"But you will be," Raziya added as she flipped a stick in her hand and it turned into a metallic staff in her palm.

"Get them! Teach them who's in charge around here!" Katsuro ordered all of his classmates.

The girls smirked, like they had been waiting for that command. The boys closed in, seeming to think that the girls did not know what they were doing. Raziya spun her staff and backed several boys up. Mayah, always comfortable with fighting with her bare hands, threw punches at whoever did not back up. Jayden came in with slash attacks, cutting into the boys with unexpected ease as far as they were concerned.

Katsuro stood back in shock as his schoolmates were taken down by three girls. He then watched in shock as some of them turned tail and run after a little over a minute of fighting. It would seem that the sight of their own blood and knowing that bruising was on the way frightened the hell out of all of the boys, who were all teenagers and they were backing away from the trio.

"Where the hell are they going?" Mayah demanded to know, anger in her voice, a vein bulging from her neck because they had gotten her so worked up. She was so pissed that they had shamed her in front of her friends and family.

"They'll be back," Jayden commented with a demonic smirk.

"Get back here!" Katsuro barked at the few boys that were trying to flee.

"Don't worry, they'll be back," Raziya said with a chuckle. Jayden had come up with such a good plan after all. She had sealed the exits and the boys would be back in a moment because of a roadblock.

The boys were trying to run for the back exit with the hope that Raziya had not managed to rig that door as she had done the front one. They did not make it that far as they stopped in a hallway and a puff of smoke appeared in front of them. They gulped as a blonde boy stepped out of the smoke wielding a wooden samurai sword known as a bokken, which seemed to have a faint blue glow around the business end of it.

"You should never run out on ladies like that," Bokuden remarked before charging at the group.

At first, the teens thought that they would be able to take Bokuden, but found that he was better versed in their styles than they were. They ended up fleeing in terror, right back to the people that they had run away from in the first place. Ten minutes into the "fighting," the quartet were the only ones standing aside for Katsuro and the ones that were down definitely were not going to get back up. The crew turned their attention to Katsuro, who appeared to be in total shock. A lone bead of sweat rolled down Katsuro's face when their eyes turned to him. There was a slight tremble working through his body that did not go unnoticed to their well-trained eyes.

"I hope you have a better time listening than we do, Katsu-chan, because I'm only gonna say this once. Leave us the fuck alone because we don't take embarrassment lightly. You mess with us again and we're planting you in this fucking floor," Jayden informed him in a calm, but terribly serious tone while pointing at him with a clawed finger.

"And we'll definitely have better toys than this," Raziya remarked with a smile as she hit a button again and her defenses on the doors and windows were lifted. She also flicked her wrist and her staff retracted in her hand.

"Hell, this was fun. Great way to blow off steam," Mayah laughed as the group made their way out of the school, walking past a stunned Katsuro, who could not even move. He could not believe his entire class of martial artists had been so easily bested by brats.

"You know, I never thought we were that good," Bokuden honestly said while putting his wooden sword on his back.

"Are you kidding? I always knew we'd kick ass in a real fight!" Jayden grinned merrily. One would think that they came from an amusement park with the expression on her face.

"I did too," Mayah agreed with a smile of her own. "And when did you have time to make these, Missy?" she inquired while grabbing Jayden's hand to get a better look at the clawed gloves.

"I threw 'em together the other day. I don't like 'em that much. I definitely need to work on 'em some more. They look like my Mommy's, eh?" Jayden asked with hope.

"You need to work on 'em more," Raziya replied honestly. The gloves were much too bulky and to her, it looked like Jayden had seriously just threw them together days ago. The olive-eyed girl could certainly do better.

"I will. I'll perfect 'em. We'll all get better!" Jayden declared with a confident smile. Her friends could not help believing her because of her expression alone. She had such faith in them and they had to respect that. From that day on, Katsuro Fukushima did not bother them again.

--------------

Next time: Todd is under the weather and Mayah is determined to cheer him up.


	45. Reason Fortyfive: The Great Cake debacle

I don't own these characters and I don't own the original premise behind this saga. I do own Jayden, Mayah, Bokuden, Raziya, Aztek, Nobunaga, Romah, and Chyna.

Warning: seven chapters are left.

Reason Forty-five: The Great Cake debacle

_This is a mess that just seems to get worse as time goes on. How to solve this problem?_

"Okay. Take care," Todd mumbled into the phone.

The redhead looked ready to burst into tears as he disconnected a call on the phone. He held that emotion in, but could not stop the feeling as if his chest was caving in on itself. He swallowed as his throat went dry. He placed his hand on his thick, pale neck while using his other hand to brace himself against the wall. Kim walked by him in the hallway of their home and noticed his expression and his posture.

"Smiley, what's wrong? How come you look like that?" Kim inquired with concern because he looked physically ill. She placed a caring hand on his broad shoulder, hoping to comfort him in any small way possible.

"Shi…" Todd muttered, sounding almost as if he was breathing instead of speaking a name.

"What about her?" Kim pressed with worry. She could only wonder why Todd looked like he was ready to die because he got a phone call from his girlfriend.

"She just called and broke up with me," he informed his Kimmie in a heartbroken tone. He could not believe it. After all the time that they had been together, she had actually dumped him. His heart clenched just from thinking about it.

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear about that, champ," Kim said sincerely while offering up a hug to help him feel better since she knew how much he cared about Shi. He took the embrace and held onto Kim tightly.

Todd almost felt like he might cry on Kim's slender shoulders. He held that inside and was just thankful for the embrace. Being held by Kim led him to believe that everything would be all right, as she always made him believe. He just knew that he was going to have to give things time.

"Thank you, pop," Todd whispered before taking a deep, soothing breath.

"What're you thanking me for?" Kim asked curiously.

"Just for always being here for me," he answered. He doubted that she would ever know just how much faith she and Shego gave him in life.

Kim wanted to laugh because the statement seemed a little silly to her. Of course she was going to always be there for her son. She did not let loose any chuckles or anything though because of the seriousness of the situation.

They released each other after a few seconds. Todd retreated to his bedroom to think things over and to let his emotions run their turbulent course. Kim sighed as she watched him walk off with slumped shoulders and a hung head. She guessed that she was going to have to fill Shego in on what happened when she came in from work.

"Well, we knew that wasn't going to work out," Shego commented with a shrug while making her way to the kitchen. She was not trying to be insensitive, merely her usual blunt self.

"You can't say that to him, though. He's crushed," Kim pointed out, following her mate. She sat down at the table in the kitchen while her spouse searched the fridge for things to make for dinner.

"I wasn't going to say that to him. Give me a little credit, Pumpkin," the pale woman said with a teasing smile.

Kim just rolled her eyes, not falling for the bait for once. Shego shrugged again and turned her attention to her task. They were silent for a little while before Shego started up again.

"So, booger's first real heartbreak, huh?" the super-powered female commented, some emotion sneaking into her voice. She could feel for their son, knowing that he had to be going through some tough time. After all, he honestly liked Shi, even though they did not have much a romantic relationship, in Shego's opinion anyway.

"Yup," Kim replied with a nod and a sad expression on her face. For a moment, she looked ready to cry for their son.

"He's lucky. It could've been worse." Shego knew for a fact that things could have been much worse.

"He could've thought he was in love," the redhead chimed in, showing that she was no stranger to harsher treatment herself.

"He could've given her everything," Shego added.

Kim suddenly got up out of her seat and rushed over to her wife. She wasted no time embracing Shego around the waist. Shego quickly returned the hug, pressing Kim against her tightly.

"Hopefully, he'll find his own princess," Shego whispered and she leaned down to kiss Kim's cheek. They both hoped that their children were able to find mates that they loved deeply and that loved them deeply, just like they did with each other.

--------------

It hurt like hell for Todd to no longer be with Shi. He had been trying to rationalize things to himself, pointing out that he and Shi never saw much of each other anyway. He wanted to mend the wounds that she left him thanks to one phone call, but his heart was not believing his brain just yet.

He moped around the house, looking noticeably miserable. It was as if he was a dead man walking, just waiting for his execution to be underway. Every part of his body seemed to droop, from his face, to his shoulders, to the slouch that seemed to be embedded in his back now. He even dragged his feet as he walked, as if there were hundred pound weights on each ankle.

Jayden and Mayah noticed his sorry state as he dragged his body by them, heading toward the kitchen. The girls were parked in the living room, doing a bunch of nothing as far as most people were concerned. Jayden already knew what his problem was, so she did not pay too much attention to him.

"What's wrong with Smiley?" Mayah asked curiously and with concern reflected in her voice, which was close to being gentle.

"Shi broke up with him a few days ago," Jayden answered with ease. She did not sound concerned in the slightest for her brother, mostly because she could not sympathize or empathize with him.

Mayah looked utterly shocked by that news; her mismatched eyes opened wide as dinner plates. Todd was free again? That was great news! Well, she supposed that it would be bad form to show that, especially with her Todd walking around looking like the world was coming to an end.

"Why'd she break up with him?" Mayah asked, succeeding in hiding her joy by sounding normal.

"I dunno. I don't really care," Jayden replied. She was not too interested in anyone's love life. She was still pretty oblivious to such things because she was only twelve. Hormones and puberty had not hit her yet, which was actually something that her parents were very thankful for. She was not really thinking about such things also because there was still so much to do in the world.

"C'mon, the way your big ears always pick up stuff, you damn well know why Shi broke up with him," Mayah insisted while flicking the tip of Jayden's ear with her forefinger.

The younger girl groaned in annoyance and pulled away. "Ah, Mommy said something about Shi experiencing the world or something now that she left Yamanouchi. She said Smiles'll get over it soon 'cause he and Shi didn't have a real relationship because they were apart so much," Jayden replied, just to shut her friend up.

"They didn't have a real relationship?" Mayah echoed. She did not know what that meant. She just knew that they considered each other boyfriend and girlfriend and that was real enough to her.

Jayden shrugged; she did not have a clue as to what that meant either. She did not care what it meant. It was not her problem and her mothers swore that her brother would be all right, so she was just waiting for him to get out of his funk. Mayah was curious, though, not to mention very hopeful.

By now, Mayah believed that she was, well, in love with Todd. To her thinking, she was not some naïve little kid anymore; she was all of thirteen years old, after all. She figured that she knew what love was and she was knee deep in it when it came to Todd. She wondered what it would take to get him to love her back, though. Maybe if she tried to make him feel better, she considered.

Mayah set about her task of trying to make Todd feel better as soon as she got home. The first thing that she did when she went home was to tear about the kitchen to find ingredients to make a cake. She never made a cake before in her life, but she was going to try now because she knew that Todd liked sweet things. It was a clumsy attempt that she could hardly make it through before she heard snickering from around the corner.

"Go away, you two!" Mayah hollered at her little brothers, who were hiding near the kitchen entrance. She unwisely threw the spoon that she was using at them, getting chocolate batter all over the floor and on the carpet in the hall.

"What the hell are you even doing?" Aztek inquired as he and Romah stepped in the kitchen after their sister's uncharacteristically pathetic assault on them. They were still laughing, doubting that they would ever see a funnier sight, that week anyway, than their sister's try at baking.

Mayah growled in anger and then looked around. "Making a mess," she admitted in a pitiful tone as she collapsed to the floor. A baker she was not; she was starting to know how her friends felt when they were so enthused about trying something only to have it blow up in their faces, usually that was literal.

"Hell yeah," Romah muttered in agreement while looking around. It looked like the kitchen threw up the ingredients to a cake more than anything else in his opinion.

"Doing a better job of it than us," Aztek remarked while bending down on the floor and dripping his finger into some chocolate. He did not hesitate in licking his chocolate-covered finger.

"Way better job," Romah concurred with an impressed look on his face as his onyx eyes scanned the room again.

"Hey, guys what do you—" Betty stopped mid-question as she entered the kitchen. Her eyed turned directly to her sons without even looking shocked or surprised. "What did you do now?" she demanded to know while throwing her hands up in defeat. If her sons got any filthier, she was just going to have a mud-hole in the backyard for them to live in so that her house could look decent for more than ten seconds.

"Wasn't us," Romah replied, shaking his head.

"Her." Aztek pointed down to their big sister.

Betty decided to believe her sons until evidence proved otherwise, which turned out to be the fair decision, she noted. She turned her attention to Mayah and saw that the girl was a mess, covered in the same stains as the kitchen. Something told her that she was going to loath to hear the story behind this one.

"Okay, fellas, go tell your dad we're having pizza tonight," Betty said because she wanted to get them out of the kitchen and there was no way that she was going to be doing anything in that kitchen tonight except for cleaning it.

"Pizza!" the boys cheered as they ran off, hands in the air and grins on their faces.

Betty sighed and sat down next to her eldest child. She looked at Mayah and saw that the girl was crying slightly. She wrapped her arms around Mayah and pulled the younger female to her.

"What's wrong, Mee-mee?" Betty asked in a gentle tone.

"Oh, Mommy!" Mayah wept into her mother's shoulder while throwing her soiled hands around her mother's neck. Chocolate was now smeared on the back of Betty's plain white tee-shirt.

"What's wrong? What're you doing in here?" the one-eyed woman inquired, even though it was fairly obvious that her daughter was trying to make a cake. She either was not trying very hard or had no talent for being in a kitchen.

"I just want him to like me, Mommy! That's all. I just want him to like me," Mayah said in a desperate tone, speaking into her mother's shoulder.

"This is about a boy?" Betty asked, almost sounding shocked, but she caught herself to sound normal. It had not occurred to her what boy it might be about despite the fact that her daughter had been interested in the guy pretty much her whole life.

"Uh-huh."

"Well, you're trying to bake him a cake so he'll like you?" Betty guessed.

"Not really. I was baking the cake to cheer him. I thought that if I did something that made him happy, he would notice me and then like me," Mayah explained, trying her best not to sound pathetic, but she was failing miserably. She could not even make it through the cake part, though. Todd was never going to like her in the same way that he liked Shi, she silently lamented.

"Why wouldn't he notice you already?" Betty inquired. If a boy missed Mayah, he was probably deaf and maybe blind too considering the animate company that she kept.

"Because he never notices me! I just…I just want him to like me," Mayah mumbled, crying more and hiding deeper in her mother's shoulder.

"How do you know that?" Betty asked in a tender, motherly tone. It was a little unnerving that Mayah was talking about boys now, but she supposed that it was going to happen sometime.

"Because…" Mayah muttered. Was it safe to say such a thing to her mother? Part of her was saying no, but another part pointed out that her mother was not stupid. Surely, her mother and every other adult in her life had noticed her behavior toward Todd and if she had figured it out through memories, they certainly had figured it out through living it.

"Because?"

"He just never has…" Mayah answered, chickening out. It was kind of embarrassing already to be crying over Todd, so she did not want to go so far as to openly admitting that she liked him.

Betty sighed. "And you think the cake'll help?"

"He likes…sweet stuff…and it would cheer him up," Mayah explained again.

"Well, Mee-mee, if it means so much to you, I'll help you out with it," Betty volunteered reluctantly. She just could not stand to see one of her kids in tears.

"Really?" Mayah asked with hope and disbelief in her voice.

"Yeah…but, if this doesn't cheer him up, I don't want you trying anything else at all," Betty replied with an edge in her voice that hinted to something underneath her words.

Mayah got it after a few seconds and had the decency to blush. "I'm not like that, Mommy and neither is he. Besides, I'm sure he'll like the cake," she squeaked.

"Okay," Betty said with a bit of a laugh. "If he does like you though, I'm going to want to meet this guy."

Mayah almost cracked and nearly informed her mother that she had already known the guy for a long time, but she held that in. The mother and daughter got to work on the cake and had it done in no time. Mayah was not as pathetic in the kitchen once she had a little guidance. They wrapped the cake up and Mayah carried it to school the next day. Her friends asked about it, but Mayah barked at them to stay away, especially Bokuden and Jayden, who liked sweet things just as much as her brother. Mayah was not about to risk those two big mouths eating all of her hard work; although she supposed that Bokuden might no longer at chocolate cake considering the way he ruined foods for himself.

At the end of the day, Mayah had to wait until everyone in the Possible-Gooding house was distracted before she felt right in going to do what she had to do. It was a good thing that it was a nice day outside and Todd had been the one to pick the kids up from school. Everyone was just running around in the backyard and he was sitting in the kitchen, reading a book. Mayah approached him with the container in her hands.

"Hey, Mayah, why aren't you out there beating people up like everyone else?" Todd asked curiously.

"I wanted to give you this," Mayah answered while putting the container on the table in front of him. She was nervous and that was evident in her voice, which trembled like she was out in the cold as she spoke.

"What is it?" Todd asked as he examined it. He was a bit uncomfortable with her giving him things, no matter what those things were.

"A present…to help you cheer up," Mayah explained, trying not to sound too childish or lame. She was not sure if she pulled it off. She actually sounded a bit shy.

"Cheer up?" he echoed in a puzzled tone.

"Because you've been really sad lately and I noticed. I was hoping this would cheer you up."

Todd chuckled a bit and smiled at her. Mayah felt like she would float off into space because of the wonderfully light feeling that spread through her as he offered her a genuine smile. He could not help himself, even though he knew that it was just going to give her the wrong idea.

"Thanks a lot, munchkin," Todd said and he patted her head. He was going to say something else, but when he saw her grin, he could not bring himself to burst her bubble and tell her that she needed to stop thinking of him the way that she did because he would never return that feeling.

"I hope you like it," she practically squeaked and she blushed as he caressed her head. Well, she looked at it as caressing.

Mayah had to run outside before she did anything embarrassing in front of Todd. He turned his attention to the gift and opened it to find it was a cake. He was a bit skeptical on her being able to make a cake and he doubted that her mother helped since Mayah had made the cake for him. Still, he cut a slice and began eating it. He recognized the taste; it was like one of Betty's cakes, so he guessed that either baking was genetic or Betty did not know where the cake was going. He hoped like hell she had not agreed to help Mayah make a cake for him knowing that it was for him.

"Hey, Smiles, where'd you get the cake from?" Shego asked as she came home later that night and found the redhead eating a piece of cake with Jayden.

"Mayah made it for him!" Jayden answered before he could. Todd had been making a face to tell his sister to shut up, but she was already gone.

"Mayah made a cake for you? What the hell did you accept it for?" Shego demanded to know. She was frowning as she asked and her eyebrows furrowed close together.

"Well…I didn't wanna hurt her feelings," Todd muttered in his own defense while looking away in shame.

"Damn it," Shego mumbled. She was not even sure where to begin scolding him for encouraging Mayah's emotions and behavior. Instead, she got on the phone and told Betty to watch what her daughter did in the kitchen.

"Why?" the older woman asked curiously.

"Because she's fucking baking cakes and shit for Smiley," Shego replied almost harshly.

"Baking cakes for Smiley?" Betty screamed into the phone. How could she have missed that! Oh, god, her daughter had been a mess for Todd? What the hell was she supposed to do about that? "Did he accept it?" she asked in a panic.

"Unfortunately, yeah. He says he didn't wanna hurt her feelings. We need to do something about her before she ends up going crazy over this shit. So, you keep her from baking shit," the green-skinned female ordered.

"You go get your son a fucking girlfriend or something," Betty countered in a strong, serious voice.

They actually both agreed with each other. They did not need things around their families to get any more disturbing, after all. They hoped that Mayah got over her little crush soon.

--------------

Betty sighed. She figured that she was going to have to have a serious talk with her eldest child. She was not too sure what she was going to say to Mayah. She did not want to embarrass the girl or make her ashamed, but she did need Mayah to understand that she should not be chasing after Todd.

"This might take a while," the brunette woman thought to herself with a sigh.

Betty walked to the stairs and looked up to the next floor instead of climbing the stairs. She tried to think of what she was going to say to Mayah, but nothing was coming to mind. She luckily had two flights to think things over. She had an idea of what she wanted to say when she got to Mayah's door, which was decorated in a manner that might have disturbed some parents, like signs that said "restricted area, use of deadly force may be used" and stickers of guard dogs that were foaming at the mouth were all over the door. It did not bother Betty, though; she knocked.

"Mee-mee?" Betty called into the room as she eased the door open.

Mayah would never be mistaken for a neat little girl. Her room was littered with clothing and magazines. Not the usual magazines that one might expect to find in a girl's room. She had weapons' magazines, always looking for new little gadgets and weapons to just have on display around her room. She was more into hand-to-hand fighting than anything else, but she was getting more interested in things that her mother's agents used when they worked in the field.

"Hey, Mommy," Mayah said from her floor, near her large wood-framed bed. She was fiddling with one of her recently purchased BB guns. Her parents refused to buy her anything real until she learned to stop shooting at her brothers with BBs.

"Mee-mee, I need to talk to you," Betty said in a calm tone.

"Talk to me? Okay." Mayah shrugged. It was not the first time that her mother needed to talk to her, after all.

Betty pulled up a piece of carpet, sitting down right on the floor next to her daughter. She took a moment to take in the girl. She was getting so big, Betty thought. Soon, she was going to be a real teenager and then after that, she would be in college, and then she would be an adult. It was an amazing thing, the one-eyed woman believed. But, that was the future. For the moment, Mayah was still a child, a confused child that seemed to have affections that were very much beyond her years. Hell, beyond a lot of people's years.

"Mee-mee, why didn't you tell me you were baking that cake for Smiles?" Betty inquired curiously, but bluntly. It was a fashion that they usually spoke to each other when being totally serious.

The teenager froze for a moment, nearly dropping her little toy. Her eyes were wide for that time too. How did her mother find out? Mayah's face dropped into a deadpan; Jayden's big mouth somehow screwed her over. She knew that for a fact.

"It doesn't count as a lie," Mayah defended herself.

Betty gave the girl a stern look. "Mee-mee, you knew I wouldn't have helped you or even let you make that cake if I knew it was for Smiley."

Mayah looked away, wishing that she could admit that the reason she did not tell her mother was because she feared that she would not get the assistance that she required. She wanted to make that cake, _needed_ to make that cake. She wanted Todd to at least like her, notice her, feel something toward her that went beyond whatever he felt for her now.

"Mommy, why act like it's such a bad thing?" Mayah decided to ask. It seemed like such a safe question. She was in love with a guy who her mother had known longer than she had even been alive. Despite the fact that her mother teased Todd much of the time, she knew that her mother trusted and respected him. What was so wrong with her loving him, she wondered.

"Mee-mee, Smiles is an adult. He's in college," Betty pointed out.

"So?" Mayah asked, not understanding why that was such a big deal. It was not like he was twenty years older than she was. He was not even ten years older than she was, so she did not see the problem.

"You're barely thirteen years old. If you're going to like some boy, he needs to be your age. Smiles is a grown man. You can't keep chasing him," the one-eyed woman said plainly, but she was careful of her tone. She did not want to crush her daughter's soul, only talk some sense into her.

"Why not?" Mayah begged to know, careful not lose her temper with her mother. Her parents were possibly the only people that were spared her short fuse no matter what.

"Because he's grown and you're not."

"I will be one day!" Mayah countered with vigor; it was passion, not anger. She was going to be a grown woman one day, so she did not see what the problem was with her chasing after Todd.

"But, you're not now. This isn't healthy behavior and it's not fair to Smiley. You know he likes you, just like he likes everyone. You're trying to push for something that not only would land the poor guy in jail, but get him in trouble with his She-she. How do you think his She-she would react if he came home one day with you as his girlfriend? She's going to want to know what he thinks he's doing with a little girl because, sweetie, that's what you are. You're a little girl. I know you act big and we treat you big, but there's no way to get around the fact that you're thirteen. He's about to be twenty. That's just too much of a gap, honey. You've got to let him go," Betty softly implored her child.

Mayah glanced at her mother to discover the woman was wearing a strange expression. Betty looked like she might cry. She was very worried about Mayah, which the girl was able to sense thanks to the expression. Betty was concerned that Mayah might grow up with emotional problems if she continued crushing on Todd because Betty did not think that Todd would ever give in.

Not only was Todd many years older than Mayah, but there were other factors that Betty thought on. Even if Todd were to ever give into Mayah, which Betty was certain that he would only do years down the line after some hard and tough breaking thanks to her daughter, but then he would have to get over the fact that he knew her when she was a baby. He would have to get over the fact that she was one his little sister's best friends. He would have to get over the fact that Mayah had been chasing him since she was a baby. Lastly, he would have to get over the fact that Mayah disturbed him and Betty knew that very well.

"I can't," Mayah whispered desperately.

"Why? What's so great about Smiles? He's the same knucklehead he's always been. What is there to attract you to him?" Betty inquired. Maybe if she understood what her daughter even saw in the guy then maybe she could figure out how to get Mayah over what was supposed to be a short crush. No crush lasted thirteen years. Hell, many marriages did not last thirteen years.

Mayah's eyes automatically softened and seemed to shine just from thinking about why she loved Todd. "Oh, he's so smart. I mean, damn near a genius if grades mean anything. He's handsome. I like how his hair's always just a little messy—"

Betty did not want to hear anymore; that little bit was disturbing enough after seeing her child's expression change because of the thought of Todd. "Okay, okay, okay. You've had a lot of time to think of that answer."

The teen nodded, smiling slightly. "Oh, yeah."

"Still, Mee-mee, you've got to give this up. This isn't fair to either of you. It only causes you heartache," the mother pointed out with deep concern in her voice and eyes.

"But…one day…" Mayah trailed off.

The one-eyed woman chimed in without missing a beat. "You think that might change? One day, he's still going to be Smiley and he's still not going to be looking to have a romantic relationship with you."

"Why not?" Mayah huffed. Why the hell did he not just love her like she loved him!

"Because you're a little girl, baby. I'm not saying this to hurt you and I know you know that. Smiley knows you're just a little girl and that's how he looks at you. You are a little girl in his eyes. You're the baby that used to smack his sister when no one was looking and she couldn't even hit you back. You're the baby that followed him around for no reason during holidays and get-togethers. He just sees you as a baby."

Mayah's face fell as her mother spoke. "But…" she muttered, a lump in her throat. "I'm not a baby anymore and one day I'll be grown."

"But, not to him. Just like you're always going to be my little girl, you're always going to be a child to him, which is fine. He knows you need to go out and find a guy your age. He wants you to be normal."

"Wanting him to like me isn't normal?" Mayah asked incredulously.

"Continuing to pursue him, even though you know he's trying to get you to move on isn't fair to you or to him. He doesn't want to hurt your feelings, sweetheart, because he likes you. Meet him halfway. Let him go."

Mayah sighed. She wanted to tell her mother that she could not "let him go." She loved Todd, always had and always would. She was certain of that. It would be easier to ask her to stop breathing and die a horrible death than to stop loving Todd in her opinion.

"I'll try," Mayah told her mother. It was not so much a lie or a way to get her mother out of the room, but it was really all she could offer and she wanted to set her mother at ease. She could try and fail, which she knew was going to be the case.

"You'll find somebody for you one day, Mee-mee," Betty promised her child. Mayah nodded in agreement, even though she knew that they were not thinking of the same "somebody."

--------------

Shego glared at her son. He was in his room, lying on his bed and she was standing in the doorway. He knew that she was there and he was just waiting for her to say something.

"Look, boog, you've got a good brain in your head and a big heart in your chest. Use that brain in your head when it comes to Mayah from now on. I think you're going to have to hurt her feelings sometime unless you want things to keep going on like they are," Shego pointed out.

Todd sighed and pouted. "I know, She-she. It's just so hard," he replied. He remembered the last time that he really hurt Mayah's feelings. She looked like he punched her in the stomach and he did not like that very much.

"That's how things are, kid. I know you hate to be the bad guy and it's kind of against your nature, but this is for her own good. So, you have to do something about her that doesn't involve taking home made cakes from the girl," Shego replied seriously.

Todd nodded. He completely agreed with that. He needed to do something, but he did not want to hurt Mayah's feelings.

"Go get a girlfriend, booger. I'm sure there're plenty of decent girls around your school. Hell, your Pop might be able to introduce you to some…and if she does, you tell me," Shego commented with a serious look on her face.

Todd chuckled and agreed with that. Surely there were some nice girls around his school. And, like Shego said, if he could not find one, then he was pretty sure that his Kimmie could point him in the right direction. Well, he supposed that he was going to have to start searching. Shego was glad for the agreement. Now, they just needed to see what happened with Mayah. It was an unnerving thought.

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Next time: Jayden wants to know who her father is, but she doesn't go about asking in the best way.


	46. Reason Fortysix: So very wrong

I don't own these characters. I also don't own the original premise behind this saga. I don't own the Care Bears. What do I own? Well, Todd, Jayden, and Raziya.

Warning: there are six chapters left.

Reason Forty-six: So very wrong

_It was not supposed to be this way._

The day had started off on a very bad note. Jayden was starting to show signs of having the poor judgment of a teenager and she had only just turned thirteen; she seemed intent on not making it to fourteen too. Something had been plaguing her mind recently; well, actually more than recently. It had been on and off her mind since she was five years old. She had finally decided that she _needed_ to know the answer and she needed to know right now. She just did not go about it in the best way.

Jayden marched into her mothers' room early that morning; they were not even out of bed yet, but they were awake. And then, she posed a question that they had been anticipating for years. Unfortunately, she did not pose it in a polite, respectful manner as she might have done in the past; the way that they had been expecting. Instead, seemingly letting her new teenage status push her brain out of her head, she made a demand.

"Who's my father?" Jayden inquired rather unceremoniously in a tone that one of her mother's did not take kindly to, especially so early in the morning. She sounded like she had an attitude already and she had only just woken up a half-hour ago. She had her arms folded across her chest and her head cocked to the side in a certain fashion with her hip pointed out in the opposite direction.

"What the fuck?" Shego muttered because of the directness and disrespectful way that their daughter was speaking to them with. Not to mention the fact that the question was totally out of the blue.

"Who's my father?" Jayden repeated her demand in a rather hard manner to make matters worse, leaning her head forward in an almost threatening way. The thought had been tearing at her and ripping her apart. She needed to know and she needed to know now before she let it drive her out of her mind, not that Shego thought the girl had a mind anymore considering the way that she was broaching the subject.

"Jade…" Kim started to say, but Shego cut in because she was not appreciating their child's tone at the moment.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, mini-monster, who the fuck are you talking to?" Shego countered in a bit an angry voice that was only going to get worse as the morning marched on. Her eyebrows were bent inward, her mouth turned down in a fury, and her eyes almost went ablaze as she focused them on their obviously mental child, at least it was obvious to her.

"I have a right to know! Now, who the fuck is my father?" Jayden hollered, her expression mimicking her Mommy's almost exactly. She squared off her shoulders, almost like she was ready to throw down, even though she still had her arms folded across her chest.

"You watch your fucking mouth. Who the fuck do you think you're talking to? I'm not Mayah or Razi," Shego pointed out the obvious as she got up from the bed because it seemed like she needed to scream at Jayden face to face for the upcoming verbal brawl.

"No shit," Jayden stated in defiance, keeping her eyes locked on her Mommy's eyes, even as the outraged woman came before her.

"Now, once again, who the fuck are you talking to like that?" Shego inquired, standing before the girl now and looking down at the shorter female with rage waiting to be unleashed like a caged hungry lion.

Kim got out of bed to with the hope to quell the epic battle that she could see looming on the horizon like the four horse men of the Apocalypse. She had one mistake in her hope to stop the battle; she stood next to Shego instead of in between the upset mother and daughter. A snarl tugged at Jayden's lip as she figured that it was now two against one, but she did not care.

She was going to get her answer, Jayden silently decided. She had a right to know and she had been patient for a lot of years. They _owed_ her an answer in her opinion.

"Mommy, I have a right to know this shit. So, who the fuck is my father?" Jayden dared to press forward, speaking to her parents as if she was the one in charge. She had the gall to keep eye contact with her Mommy.

"You're not going to hear a fucking thing from me…" Shego started and then she corrected herself. "No, from us, until you calm the fuck down and remember who the fuck you're talking to. You're not the fucking boss of the house to come in here and demand shit. Who the fuck do you think you are?" the pale woman inquired, emphasizing her words by bobbing her head forward with each swear word that left her mouth.

"I have a right to know!" Jayden screamed while unfolding her arms to point to herself.

"Watch your fucking tone!" Shego pointed down at the girl with one long finger.

"Tell me!"

"Not until you calm the fuck down," Shego declared.

"I don't have to fucking listen to you!" Jayden countered.

Shego snarled, her blaring ire rising like a solar flare; what the fuck did their daughter mean that she did not have to listen to her?! Of course Jayden had to listen to her, she was her mother! Her emerald eyes narrowed as she dared consider what the teen meant by those words. Kim seemed to get the gist of it too, so she decided to step into the fray before her mate murdered their daughter.

"Both of you, calm down!" Kim ordered forcefully in a tone that was rare for her. Her voice was completely serious, showing that she was not happy with the way things were going.

"You already sided with her, so don't tell me to fucking calm down!" Jayden pointed a menacing finger at Shego, although she was speaking to Kim.

"Hey, you don't fucking talk to your Mom like that!" Shego said while slapping their daughter's hand down, which earned her a deep growl from the teen.

"You're stalling! That's all! You're not going to tell me, are you? You've been keeping it from me for all this time and you're not gonna tell me now, are you? Stop being fucking assholes and just tell me!" Jayden's face twisted almost savagely as she shrieked. Her face turned red from yelling and from anger.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Kim screamed at the top of her lungs and stepped into between her wife and their daughter before things could get any worse. She put out her hands, aiming a palm at each other them to get them to calm down and to keep them from leaping at each when their short fuses finally ran out.

Shego and Jayden both huffed and folded their arms across their chests. They almost looked like the same person, one just shorter than the other, from the expressions on their faces. Their mouths turned down in the same displeased scowl, eyes ignited with the same fire, and stances just as tense as a steel post. They both actually appeared like they wanted to take the other on and was upset that Kim had come between them.

"Now, will you two just calm down for a moment, so we can discuss this like civilized human beings?" Kim suggested with a snort.

"You need to tell your daughter that one," Shego commented with a scoff, sounding almost childish as she spoke.

"Is that how you always looked at it? That I was just Mom's daughter?" Jayden inquired with gritted teeth. A large part of her, underneath all of her burning anger, feared the answer to that question and wished to whatever divine being that might exist that she could take it back. After all, if it was confirmed, she would have to die right after that.

"Jade," Kim said while Shego was shocked into silence by that question.

It was like Shego's brain shut down on the question because of the sheer insanity of it. Nothing was working in her head. Saw Jayden as just Kim's daughter? Sorry, her brain apologized. It could not even grasp the concept. It was almost like asking an ant to build a submarine; the ant would not even know what a submarine was. Shego could not picture Jayden in any other light than what she was; Jayden was her daughter, her and Kimmie's mini-monster.

Jayden felt like her green-skinned mother's silence was confirmation of her inquiry. She swallowed down a huge bubble of sorrow, buried it underneath her wrath, and gave that emotion full reign over the situation. "I don't care! It's not like you're my mother anyway, Shego," the teen declared, making sure to say that louder than anything else that morning. She said it with feeling and then had the nerve to say that name with such venom.

Shego's hand moved without any commands from her brain, going out and doing something that she would never think to do outside of a sparring contest. She hit their baby, slapping her with an open palm. The sound of the hit echoed through out the room and seemed loud enough to make them all deaf.

Jayden, for her part, appeared absolutely crushed as her head moved to the side with the blow. It was like her soul shattered inside of her the second her mother's hand impacted her peach cheek. Tears collected in her olive eyes while Shego's emerald orbs widened with shock as her actions finally reached her brain. She had slapped their baby girl. Her face fell into such disbelief that she almost could not believe that was her hand that dared to damage their precious child.

It seemed like an eternity passed and that Shego and Jayden were the only two people in the world before it occurred to them to do something. It felt like there was rift in the ground between them that opened into something that would have made the Grand Canyon look like a regular hole in the ground. A powerful storm seemed to brew above them, vengeful dark grey clouds gathering like an assassin's guild, banishing lighting bolts as their weapons. In the center of it all, without even knowing it, Kim stood.

Jayden and Shego retreated from the scene at the exact same moment. Kim was torn as to who she should go after first, knowing that her choice could cause the trouble that they were already having to expand infinitely. She wanted to comfort them both, knowing that Shego had to be hurting as much as Jayden after striking their little monster.

"Kimmie," Todd said in a low voice, poking his head into the doorway.

"Smiley," Kim said in shock, not expecting him to be there. But then again, he had to have heard that argument.

"You get the big loudmouth, I'll handle the little one," he offered with a smile, which he had to force out. He could tell that Kim needed the smile to get her back on track and to make sure that she remained positive despite the circumstances.

Kim nodded and the two redheads went after the suggested brunettes. The petite scientist had to go into the master bedroom's half-bathroom to retrieve her spouse. Shego was crouched by the shower with her knees pulled to her chest and staring at her hands as if they offended her deeply.

"Love…" Kim started, but she was not totally sure what she needed to say.

"I…slapped the baby…" Shego said in a daze, incredulous to her own actions. Her eyes seemed glazed over with horror. From the look on her face, an outsider might have thought that she slapped an actual baby and not a thirteen year old. It made no difference to Shego; she had hit their daughter out of anger. She felt awful, like there was toxic sludge building in her body. She looked greener than usual, as if she was going to throw up.

"Honey, don't worry about it. We'll fix it," Kim promised as she took a seat next to her wife, embracing the green-skinned woman around the waist, curling up into her.

"Fix it? Princess, I slapped the baby and she doesn't think I'm her mother. How the hell are we going to fix this?" Shego asked desperately, tears gathered in her eyes. She threw her arms around Kim and held onto her like a life-saver in the middle of a rough ocean.

"Look, both of you were just letting your emotions run really high. Once you both calm down, we'll sit down and talk about it and everything'll go over fine," Kim promised in a low, gentle tone while lovingly caressing her spouse to make sure that the super-powered woman _felt_ her sincerity.

"How can you be so sure?" the older female inquired, still sounding on the brink of tears.

"What do you mean how can I be sure? That's our baby there and we love her as much as she loves us. Everything has to work out just because of that," Kim answered with a bright smile.

Shego shook her head and chuckled a bit. "You've always got so much faith in all of us."

"I know what's in us all and you know I like to think positively anyway," the redhead replied, sounding very assuring.

--------------

Todd stood in the doorway of Jayden's room, which was not changing no matter how old she got; it would seem that she was never going to outgrow Care Bears. She was curled up in the corner by her bed, weeping into her favorite body pillow, which was shaped like Cheer Bear. Her shoulders shook almost violently as she bawled into the pink bear-shaped pillow. Todd sighed at the sight, not recalling the last time that he had seen Jayden cry. He doubted that there ever was a time that she looked so pathetic.

Jayden could feel the presence in her doorway and she glanced up, hoping to see her Mom standing there. Instead, her brother was there and she was not pleased with that. Her Mom had not come to check on her? Then her Mom went to check on her Mommy…no, on Shego, she mentally corrected herself. Her Mom had gone to check on Shego instead of her, after she was the one that was slapped! Oh, that was so wrong and unfair!

"Hey, munchkin, don't cry," Todd said in a gentle tone as he flopped down next to his sister.

How could he say that, Jayden screamed in her mind. Her Mommy slapped her for crying out loud! No, no, no, her anger driven mind corrected her again. Shego slapped her. That bitch Shego had slapped her.

"It's okay, monster," Todd tried to assure the little girl while putting his arm around her, hoping that the affectionate embrace would help settle her nerves.

"No, it's not," Jayden sniffled, keeping her head hid in her pillow. She did not want her big brother to see her crying like a baby, but it was too late for that.

"What's the matter?" he asked, even though he could guess considering the fact that he heard the noise and his sister's cheek was looking mighty red, poking out from where she had her face concealed.

"Mommy…" Jayden sniffled again since she was still crying. "…hit me." She whimpered.

"Hit you?" he echoed almost as if he did not understand, which he actually did not. The only reason his brain did not totally shut down was sheer force of will. He knew that he needed to stay focused for his little sister.

"Yeah, Shego hit me," Jayden repeated, correctly herself that time around.

"Shego?" Todd echoed; it was getting harder to keep his brain from pausing. "Hey, since when do you call your Mommy by her first name?" he asked. He would never even do something so bold, especially now.

"Because that's her name. She doesn't think of me as her daughter and she won't tell me who my father is," Jayden explained in a mumble. She dropped her pillow, taking some time to wipe her face. Her cheeks were stained from the drenching thanks to her weeping. She had cried a river from the looks of it.

Todd had to look down to make sure his sister was being serious. She looked like she had never been more serious in her life, her eyes dark and hard due to the circumstances. He sighed in despair; things were worse than he thought. He had hoped that the yelling that woke him up that morning was the somewhat normal hollering that occurred in their home when Jayden accidentally woke up Shego on a day off. Turned out the one day that he actually got out of bed because of the screaming, it was something extraordinary…and in a bad way.

"Monster, you're kidding, right? Of course, She-she sees you as a daughter. You're her mini-monster," Todd pointed out quite earnestly. He could not even figure out how she could think such a thing. Shego had done nothing but been a loving mother to both of them for as long as he could remember.

"I'm not related to her by blood. She doesn't think I'm her daughter," the teen cried on, tears pouring down her face from her pain. It felt like her soul had been impaled by Shego's silence to her earlier question, and not the one that had to do with who was her father.

"I'm not related to her by blood either and she thinks I'm her son, makes me feel that I'm her son. Just like I think you're my sister and try my best to make you feel that way and just like you think I'm your brother…right?" Todd asked, sounding more hopeful than he meant to. His eyes misted over as he awaited his answer. The day was definitely going to go downhill fast for him if he found out that Jayden did not think of him as a big brother just because they were not related by blood. Hell, he might start crying.

"Of course you're my brother, weird brother," she assured him, wanting to smile, but she did not have the strength to do so. She never thought of him as any less than her super big brother, the guy that could pretty much do anything. He was her brother, nothing less and he always could be her brother.

"Well, She-she sees you as her daughter because you are her daughter. What do you want to know about your father anyway? You've got two great parents right down the hall," Todd commented while motioning in the direction of their parents' room by tilting his head that way.

"Because I want to know. I mean…why? Why'd he do what he did?" she asked in a mumble while sniffling some more. She wiped her face with the heel of her hands and rubbed her eyes a bit.

He was confused and it showed on his face, his eyes squinting a bit as if he was trying to see something in a distance. His brain was going to need a long break when everything was done with. "What do you mean 'why'?"

"I wanna know why he agreed to have me. Do you know who my father is?" she asked curiously, hopefully. Maybe her brother would let her know since her mother and Shego were acting so evil and stingy, in her opinion.

"No…" Todd answered honestly. "Never occurred to me to ask either," he admitted with a shrug. Hell, it actually never entered his mind that Jayden had a father. To him, Kimmie had just been pregnant with her and She-she's kid and then his baby sister came along. Sure, it was not possible biologically for her to not have a father, but in his mind, it just never came up. Jayden was there and that was that. No mystery.

"No?" she asked, sounding as skeptical as she was. She could not believe that it never crossed his mind.

"No, you know, never thought about it at all. This is our family. I mean, you ever think about my other parents?" he countered, thinking that would help her understand why it never occurred to him that she had a father.

"Well…sometimes," she confessed and he appeared shocked by that. She figured that she would explain herself. "Well, I always wanted you to stay here forever…with us. So, when you had to go back to your other parents, I always resented it. Sometimes, I thought that maybe you liked them better than us."

Todd chuckled. "Trust me, I love you guys and I'm happy that I live with you guys. I guess this is why I don't get why you care about this father thing. I mean, what makes you think he was even…well, a guy? I mean, he could've been a tube."

"So?" Jayden said, showing she did not care.

"Well, maybe Kimmie and She-she don't know who the guy is. I still don't get why it's such a big deal, Jade. I mean, you have two great parents. Do you know how lucky you are? Parents that want you, parents that are happy you're always around, parents that think the world of you," Todd commented and he would have kept going if his sister did not break in.

"But, they're your parents too," she pointed out.

"They weren't always. I had to fight to get these guys. Don't push them away," Todd practically pled with his sister. He was not sure why he sounded like he was begging, but he could not let her push two wonderful parents away. He could not allow her to ruin their family over something that he was sure she and their mothers could talk out.

"She…she…she…" Jayden did not know what to say.

"They wanted you, monster. They planned for you. I've seen shitty parents, believe me. You've been blessed."

"So, I should just give up on wanting to know who my father is?" Jayden inquired, furious and hurt, but still weeping just the same. She jerked her head a bit, her tears flying from her face because of the movement. Her mind was trying to tell her to stop crying, but her soul was not obeying. The very essence that made her who she was had broken by the fact that her Mommy had actually hit her.

"Well…I don't think it's very important," he freely admitted. He might have been being a little too honest for the situation.

"Not important?" she screamed and her eyes ignited with a near demonic inferno. Was her whole family out of their minds? She was talking about her father for crying out loud! The man was the reason that she was created. How could that not be important?!

"Like I said, bud, I've seen shitty parents. You've got some great ones. Why do you want to rock the boat?" he inquired in a confused manner. He really did not understand why she cared who her father was. As far as he thought about it, which was only just now because it never entered his mind before, he figured that bringing up such a thing could not do their family any good. The question probably only hurt their mothers, making them think that Jayden did not love them as much as he knew she did. Their mothers did not need that kind of pain and Jayden did not need to think about some faceless man that probably just sold his sperm to a sperm-bank and their parents picked his simple because he had some incredible profile.

"Because I wanna know who created me!" Jayden answered, punching her bed in anger.

"Um…hello, Kimmie and She-she created you," he pointed out as it was logical to him. Without them, there would be no Jayden. They had to both want a child and agree to have one.

"Two women cannot create a baby," she said in a low, menacing tone because she felt like her brother was just messing with her now. She was not stupid and she knew basic biology.

"Sure they can!" he argued with vigor. "They wanted to have you and they set the wheels in motion for you to come into this world. Those two created you from a wish on a freaking star! You have no idea how happy they were to be having you, for you to be their daughter!" he informed her, sounding strong and joyful for her to believe him.

"Then why'd she slap me? Why won't they just tell me!" Jayden inquired and she began weeping harder as she remembered the feel of her Mommy's palm connecting with her now stinging cheek. It was not even that she was hit hard, but that she was hit point blank.

"Just give them a little while to get their acts together, monster."

Jayden frowned; her brother was on their mothers' side too, she realized. She came to that conclusion because Todd seemed to skirt the issue that Shego had hit her. They were all against her, she concluded. She suddenly wanted to get out of the house.

"Smiley, could you get me a towel to wipe my face?" Jayden requested. Her voice was damn near humble, which might have set him off at any other time, but not now.

"Sure, munchkin," Todd replied and he got up. He left the room to go into the linen closet and grab a towel. When he returned to the room, he found it empty. He immediately realized that he had been had. "Ah, damn it," he groaned. She was definitely their mothers' daughter.

--------------

Jayden was standing at Raziya's apartment door and pounding on it to the point that Raziya knew just who was there. She opened the door without asking who it was and was not surprised to see the ebony-haired teen in front of her. Raziya was dressed in some house clothes, which consisted of a paint-covered, once-white tank top and some cut-off shorts. Raziya craned an eyebrow when she noticed that Jayden was panting and her eyes were blood-shot as if she had been crying.

"My parents aren't home and we both know I'm not supposed to have company when they're gone," Raziya commented, teasing a bit, even though she had a feeling that now was not the time to do such a thing.

"I'm not company," Jayden pointed out, still trying to catch her breath. Maybe it was not the best idea to sprint all the way there, she considered.

"I know. C.O.I," Raziya said, motioning into the apartment.

Jayden nodded, knowing that stood for "come on in." She did not know why Raziya's speech was suddenly evolving in an instant message chat, but she did not mind since she and their friends mostly knew what Raziya was talking about. Her friends did not know that her speech pattern was finally catching up to her after spending so much time with her mother.

Jayden entered the apartment while Raziya closed the door. She went straight for the living room with the older girl right behind her. There were a bunch of machine parts littering the room, which was to be expected. Raziya had been working one of her father's cybernetic limbs, trying to figure out how it worked to mimic it later on just for the hell of it. Her father had made a lot of strides and was so close to realizing his life-long dream that she could taste it for him.

"What brings you by?" Raziya asked as she flopped on the floor with her work while Jayden took the sofa.

"I had a fight with everybody," Jayden answered in a grumble, looking as sour as she sounded. She was scowling, but a small snarl did tug at her top lip. Her shoulders were tight, but slumped.

"A fight? About what?" the blue-eyed girl inquired curiously. Her voice was the same, despite her friend's defeated, yet vexed demeanor. She figured that she should be normal and level-headed until Jayden proved her with a reason to be otherwise.

"My father…" Jayden admitted.

Raziya noted something under her friend's words, something odd. There was something wrong with Jayden's tone. The way that she said "father" was almost the same way Raziya and Mayah said the word "daddy" and that rubbed her the wrong way immediately. After all, there was a difference between the two and Jayden did not seem to know that if her voice was any indication of things.

"What about your father?" Raziya asked, almost as if it was an afterthought. She wanted to seem more focused on her work to keep her younger friend from getting worked up.

"I want to know who he is. You're telling me you were never curious about my father?" Jayden countered incredulously. Was everyone around her insane? They never thought about who her father was?

"Well, I wouldn't say 'curious.' I mean, every time our stupid classmates or someone brought it up, it was on my mind for a minute or so. But, then I'd remember what your Mom said about families being different. Your family is different and that's not a bad thing. From what I can tell, it's a really good thing," Raziya commented with a shrug.

"So what, I shouldn't care about my father?" Jayden inquired with a huff through clenched teeth.

"Well, first off, you gotta stop saying 'father' like that. Now, I can't act like I know everything about the situation, but I'm guessing you had a father in a reptilian sense of the word and you're trying to make it a mammal sense of the word," Raziya explained her stance on the issue so far. She figured that her analogy would get through to her friend the best way and she actually felt like that was the truth, but if that was, it was between Jayden and her mothers.

Jayden had to stop and think about the animal analogy because she was so mad at the world, but she got it seconds later. Raziya meant that her father was just a specimen that supplied fertilization to her Mom's egg and nothing more while she was trying to make it seem like the guy was supposed to be there for her. She thought that he was supposed to be there for her. He was her father for crying out loud!

"Razi, he's my dad," Jayden argued, unknowingly irking her friend with her choice of words.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. Okay, now you're letting your crazy talk. Calm down and let the rational part of your brain take hold for a minute. He's not your dad. Do you even know what the hell a dad is?" Raziya inquired, almost as if she was insulted. She had to look at Jayden now because to her, the younger girl was talking major insanity.

Raziya could not step back and let Jayden think that the sperm she rode in was a "dad." She wondered where her supposedly genius friend had gotten such an idea from. Surely, Kim and Shego had not encouraged such thoughts, she knew that. It had to be some nutty thing that Jayden talked herself into, considering the fact that she seemed so worked up about the whole matter.

"Of course I know what a dad is," Jayden answered, sounding insulted that her friend would even ask her that stupid question. She saw dads all the time. Her uncles Jim and Tim, Felix, Ron, and Dahntay were all dads, great ones at that. How could she not know what a dad was with so many examples?

"I don't think you do. I hope you didn't say this shit to your mothers," Raziya begged, her eyes showing deep concern. She was obviously worked up over the subject now because of the way that she was swearing. She was never one for casual cussing, but her good friend was speaking madness…more so than usual and it was much more important than usual.

"I never got the chance! They wouldn't even tell me who the guy is," Jayden huffed in a fury, folding her arms over her chest for a moment to just drive home her emotions.

"Jade, you didn't really bring this up to them like this. Do you know how hurt they had to feel? You're making it seem like you don't want them as parents," Raziya argued.

"Maybe I don't!" Jayden declared with false conviction that only came from her wrath. She was lying and the world would have known that.

"Don't say stupid things like that," Raziya scolded her friend and stood up just to slap the younger girl in the back of the head.

"Ow!" Jayden complained and a furious expression took over her face for a few seconds. Why was everyone hitting her today?!

"You stupid moron," Raziya huffed. "W.T.F? What's wrong with you? Saying such dumb things."

Jayden puffed out her cheeks in anger; if she wanted the kind of treatment that she was receiving, she would have gone to Mayah's house. Raziya knew that she was acting very much like Mayah at the moment, allowing her rage to walk her through a very difficult situation. But, she felt like right now, Mayah's approach would get through to Jayden because of the stupidity of the whole thing. Once she could get Jayden to think straight, she would try to reason with Jayden.

"What do you mean?" Jayden screamed at her friend, not taking kindly to making it seem as if she was in the wrong.

"Listen, pal, we both know we've been blessed. We have great parents that all love us and want what's best for us. You're screwing that up for yourself right now and you're hurting the people that love you most in the world. Now, I don't know much about your birth or nothing like that, but I know for a fact that out of all of us, and I mean all of our friends, you got it the best," Raziya reasoned.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Jayden inquired with an arched eyebrow.

"Look, Jade, your parents planned you out. They had to sit down and talk it out and make a very hard decision, I know this because they're two women. My parents, hell, everyone else's parents, we probably just showed up by accident. They had a night of fun and then the next thing they know, we're on the way. Now, I'm not saying they love us less than your parents love you, but you gotta think about the work that went into you coming into existence. You belong to Kim and Shego. You're their daughter from the thought in their heads and the cry in their hearts to have a brat like you. Don't you realize how special you are to them?" Raziya practically pled with her friend.

Raziya could not believe the conversation that they were having. Was Jayden such a spoiled brat that she was not happy with two great mothers, but was willing to crush them more than likely just to go look for some father that did not exist? Her friend could not possibly be that stupid, she thought. No, not someone that rivaled her scientific mind; it was not possible for Jayden to be that stupid, she concluded. Jayden was riled up and letting her emotions do the walking and talking, which typically got her into trouble. She just needed to calm the younger girl down.

"Then why the hell won't they just tell me?" Jayden begged to know in a quiet, pitiful tone. Underneath her anger, and still hurting soul from her Mommy's slap, she knew just how special she was to her parents, which was she was not screaming anymore.

Raziya could tell that her friend's rational was finally catching up to the rest of her, which was a good thing. She guessed that all she needed to do was keep talking and she would be able to get Jayden to slow down and go back home. With luck, the olive-eyed girl would be able to fix whatever mess she left in her emotional wake, Raziya silently prayed.

"Did you give them a chance?" the blue-eyed girl asked.

"Um…" Jayden fiddled with her hands for a moment. "I just sorta yelled at them…and Shego yelled back."

"Shego? Dear god, tell me you didn't call your Mommy 'Shego' during this whole exchange?" the brown-haired female implored her friend.

"I did…" Jayden confessed while lightly caressing the cheek that had been slapped over an hour ago. It still hurt.

Raziya groaned and shook her head. "Jade, you lost your insane, little mind and I don't know where the hell it is. You're going to tell me that you called your Mommy 'Shego' like she was some regular woman on the street?!" She threw her hands up, as if she gave up.

"She's not related to me by blood and she doesn't think of me as her daughter," Jayden defended her actions. Tears welled up in her eyes again as she thought about Shego's silence toward her question that morning.

"Jayden, you really are a stupid moron. Do you honestly believe that Shego doesn't think of you as her daughter? And since when the hell did blood mean anything in your family? It's about how you all feel about each other, duh," Raziya pointed out. She could not believe that she even had to say that. Love did not equal blood relation for crying out loud, she thought with a huff. She learned that from Jayden's family, which she would not even know were not really related by blood if only Todd did not have to go back to his birth parents back when he was younger.

Jayden stopped and thought about her family, mostly Shego. She thought about all of the good times that she had with her Mommy, but then again, she recalled the slap that morning. The tears in her eyes began to slid down her cheek as she continued going through her family life, how happy they typically were, how much they always did together, like work on science projects with her. They felt like a real family and they all loved each other very deeply.

"Jade, I can't pretend like I know how you feel about wanting to know who the guy was that helped make your mothers have you, but I can tell you that you're not supposed to punish them for wanting you. Besides, they're your heroes," Raziya reminded her friend while trying her best to act like the younger teen was not crying right in front of her.

Jayden nodded without even thinking. Her mothers were her heroes. She wanted to be just like them, even now. Hell, she was just like them and most people knew that, her included.

"Let's be real, Jade. We all look up to our parents like the ancients looked up to gods. I know you don't feel good about the way you left things," Raziya said.

"I don't…" the younger girl admitted in a mumble. She felt sick over it, like she might throw up and have a horrible headache could over take her if she allowed it.

"So, go back home and talk it out."

Jayden actually squirmed a little bit. "But…they're really mad at me…"

"I'm sure they're more worried than mad if this thing went the way you make it seem, especially if you're crying about it. Go talk it out with them and remember that the guy that helped them get you isn't really a father, Jade. You've got two great parents that love you to death, be happy with that because by now, we all know not everyone in the world is lucky to have that. Don't throw it away," Raziya instructed her friend.

Jayden nodded slowly while wiping her eyes since it was brought up that she was once again bawling. "When the fuck did you get so wise?" she inquired in a baffled tone.

"I've been known to have my moments," Raziya remarked dryly. Thankfully, Jayden was back to normal and would hopefully have a few moments of her own, the older girl thought.

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Next time: Jayden finds out who her father is…and then Raziya finds out who Jayden's father is.


	47. Reason Fortyseven: Phoenix

I don't own these characters. I don't own the original premise behind this saga. I don't own the Care Bears.

Warning: there are five chapters left.

Reason Forty-seven: Phoenix

_They can be childish at times, but more often than not, they show they're mature._

Raziya did not move from her place on the floor as she heard a small creak, signaling the front door of the apartment was being opened. She heard both of her parents speaking to each other in low voices, which did get her attention. She turned her head to look at them and noticed that their attention was focused outside of the apartment.

"Mommy, Daddy, what're you doing?" Raziya asked curiously with an eyebrow arched in the air.

"Nothing," Monique answered as she and Felix finally made it into the apartment. She shut the door behind him.

"The old lady next door was just ratting you out, saying you had company over while we were gone," Felix informed their daughter with a teasing smile on his face. He and his wife were shocked that the place did not look like a hurricane hit it…more so than when they left anyway since Felix and Raziya had trouble cleaning up after themselves. But, they thought the apartment would look like some kind of a war zone after finding out that Raziya had company.

"It wasn't company. It was Jade and I would've left her out there in the hallway if she wasn't being her usual loud self," Raziya replied with a bit of a scoff because of Jayden's insignificance.

"What was Jade doing here that early in the morning?" Monique asked curiously. The nosy old bat next door pretty much had a timeline of when her daughter let "company" in. On their own, Jayden, Mayah, and Bokuden did not count as company. It was when they were all together that no one wanted them unsupervised in a house; although when it was just a pair of them, they still could wreck a place in under thirty minutes.

"She was being stupid," Raziya answered bluntly, turning her attention back to her work as her mother walked off to go hang up a light jacket that she was wearing thanks to an un-seasonal chill outside.

"Being stupid?" Felix echoed as if he did not understand, although according to their daughter that was one of Jayden's usually moods of operation. He moved himself into the living room. He glanced down at the work Raziya was doing and noticed that she was still studying the cybernetic parts that he designed like she had been doing when they left that morning.

"Well, she was actually more upset than stupid. The little idiot had this big fight with Aunt Kim and Aunt Shego. It was…" Raziya paused, remembering just how messed up her friend had been that morning. Her face scrunched up from the memory, which both of her parents noticed.

"It was?" Felix was trying to prompt Raziya to continue because he and Monique were very interested in finding out what happened now that they saw her expression. It seemed that Jayden had not come over that morning being her usual flamboyant and sometimes random self, but something deeper.

"It was kinda sad," Raziya commented, her mouth scrunching a bit because her friend's crazy behavior. To see Jayden so messed up over something that was more minor than the younger girl seemed to know was just sad in her opinion. She did take into account that Jayden did not seem to think it was so minor, but to her, it was still not the big deal that her friend seemed to think it was.

"Sad how?" Monique asked curiously, intrigued written all over her face as she stepped closer to the teen.

"Just sad. She had this big fight with her mothers over who her father was," Raziya informed them, shrugging slightly. She hoped that was all that would be said on the meaningless subject. She figured that Jayden should be happy and feel blessed to have the parents that she had, end of the argument. Jayden did not have a father in the sense that she seemed to think and Raziya hoped that she plainly saw that now so that the topic would never come up again.

Felix and Monique tried their best to contain themselves, although they both went rigid for a moment as soon as they heard their daughter's response. They hoped that Raziya was more interested in her cybernetics project on the floor or too engrossed with the memory of Jayden to notice their reactions. They managed to relax after a few seconds, but a seed had been planted in their daughter's mind by then.

"Oh," the parents sort of coughed out the one word response.

Raziya continued on. "Yeah, she was crying and everything. She was mad because they wouldn't tell her who he was and it was just really weird. I told her to go back home though because I was sure her parents were just as hurt as she was about everything and they needed to talk everything out," she explained, still sounding almost nonchalant on the matter.

"Wow, that's some good advice," Felix said, sounding a bit shocked. His eyebrows shot up, as if he was surprised that their daughter could be so rational, even though he did recognize that she was probably the most rational out of her friends, not counting Bokuden anyway.

"Ah, that's my little sage," Monique remarked with a proud smile on her face and she leaned down to rub the top of Raziya's head.

"Mommy, stop!" Raziya objected with a giggle as she moved from her mother's grip. "You're gonna mess up my hair."

Monique laughed a little before turning her gaze to Felix. It was like she was asking what he thought Kim and Shego were going to do. He shrugged; he did not know what they were going to do. They supposed that they could not do anything until they knew how Kim and Shego managed the damage control.

--------------

Kim and Shego heard the front door open from the living room. They wanted to run into the front, knowing that their daughter had come back home. They held off because they did not know what kind of mood Jayden might be in. They felt some confidence when she called out "Mom," which was followed by "Mommy" and the announcement that she was home. Todd poked his head out of his room and decided to just stand by the stairs, giving the ladies a chance to work everything out.

"We're in the living room, baby," Kim called.

Jayden ran into the room and stopped short just shy of the couch. She had not planned the interaction out in her mind and did not know what to do. She just stared at her mothers, who were sitting on the sofa, staring right back at her. They looked exhausted, like she did. Their eyes focused on her with pain and hope underneath all that green, just like hers. Upon seeing them, their faces raw with emotion just like hers, Jayden knew what she wanted to do.

"I'm so sorry!" the girl apologized as she flung herself onto both of them, hugging them both around the neck with an arm apiece. "I'm so sorry for everything this morning!"

"Oh, it's okay, baby," Kim said in an assuring tone while rubbing the child's back. "We're sorry too."

"Me especially. I'm so sorry I hit you," Shego apologized wholeheartedly while holding onto Jayden tightly. The super-powered woman exhaled in deep relief to see that their child held no ill will toward her from her behavior earlier. It was like the weight of the world had been lifted off of her shoulders.

"I kinda deserved it, Mommy. I just got a little carried away," Jayden said in an ashamed tone, her eyes cast downward to match her voice. "It's just something that had been on my mind for a long time and I guess I got so mad because you never said anything about it and I was waiting for you to say something."

"Well, we were actually waiting for you to ask," Kim informed the child, who leaned back a bit so she could look at her parents while still being on both of them.

"So, you are going to tell me?" Jayden asked almost as if she did not believe it. She blinked hard because of her disbelief.

"That's the plan, mini-monster," Shego promised the girl, rubbing her shoulder a bit just out of the joy that the girl was not upset with her anymore. "But, first, let's get one thing clear, you damn sure are my, _our _daughter. You're _our_ very own little mini-monster and we both love you very much," she insisted.

"I know, Mommy. I just…I kinda let my mouth get away with me this morning," Jayden admitted with a sheepish look on her face as she scratched the side of her head in shame.

"Yeah, but we'll do a do-over, starting right now," Shego said. She would like a do-over just as much as Jayden considering how hurt she was from hitting the girl. She felt like she would break down into tears right now just from being forgiven by the girl.

"A do-over?" Jayden echoed in a puzzled tone and then a light bulb went off in her head. Oh, then she would get to ask her question again, but do it right. "Um…would you please tell me about my father? I mean, well, you know, the guy that got Mom pregnant," she requested. On her way home, she got the chance to think over Raziya's outrage with her calling the man who impregnated her Mom "father." She was only starting to understand what was wrong with her putting it that way and she guessed that it came from the fact that she did not have a father, but she did compare it in her mind to having her mothers and it was there that she could see the difference.

Plus, Raziya's animal analogy helped her out a lot. She could see how she had a father in the reptilian sense of the word. Was she expecting too much in knowing the man? She was not sure because she was not too sure on why she wanted to know who he was anymore, expect for the fact that he did assist in creating her. Other than that, she was not sure what she would get out of knowing his identity, but she figured that she would see since her mothers were going to tell her.

"Well, little imp, the guy that did that for us was a very nice guy who understood how much we wanted to have you," Shego started.

"And he agreed to help us have you," Kim chimed in, smiling a bit. Her spouse could guess that she was remembering things much better than what actually happened from her expression alone. Shego was right about that.

"Is this guy someone you know?" Jayden asked curiously because of the way that her mothers were talking about him. They sounded almost personal while speaking on him.

"Well, I was nervous about it because your Mommy was ready to have a baby, but I wasn't sure if I was. And I was kind of nervous about carrying you while your Mommy didn't want to risk getting pregnant…" Kim tried to explain, but her daughter cut in.

"You mean, you both had the chance to have babies, but you didn't take it, Mommy?" Jayden inquired incredulously. Her tone was more subconscious than anything else. Her brain knew that from how her parents treated her that it seemed more logical for them to have more kids if they could, but they had not taken that opportunity. Her brain marked that down as weird.

"Hey, kid, this green skin and the plasma isn't just for the hell of it. This is a big genetic problem and I didn't want to risk you or any other baby in my body. I was really scared on what would've happened if I was the one that carried you," Shego explained while caressing Jayden's cheek. Shego just could not imagine putting their daughter in such danger, especially now.

"Oh…" Jayden muttered. She never really thought of that; she was starting to understand how people never thought about her having a father. After all, her Mommy's genes were kind of apparent with her powers and skin tone, but she just thought of it as normal and something that was always there. It never occurred to her that her Mommy's biological makeup was different from anyone else's.

"So, once we figured out that we were going to have you and Princess was all right with carrying you on her own with me as support…and boy did she need it, we had to figure out who would be best in helping bring you around," Shego said.

"Why not just go to one of those sperm things?" Jayden asked curiously.

"Because they could've given us just anything and lied about it. We wanted to give you the best start possible. You already had Pumpkin in your favor, so we have to find someone to compliment that," Shego answered.

"Why not one of your brothers?" the child inquired.

"Do you think that would've worked well?" Kim countered.

Jayden thought about her uncles for a moment. She could almost picture all of their reactions. Her uncle Hego would have undoubtedly turned them down, calling them sick or something considering the way she noticed her uncle looked at her mothers. Her uncle Mego probably would have done it; he loved her deeply after all. He spoiled her almost as badly as her mothers did; he was worse than her grandparents when it came to her. Why not him?

"Why not Uncle Mego?" Jayden asked.

Kim and Shego looked away; in their minds, they were incredulously yelling, "Mego?!" Considering how much he loved the girl, they almost believed that he would have done it back then now. But, they still thought that he would have wanted more from them than they were willing to put up with. They were almost certain that he would have tried to interject himself in Jayden's life, hiding behind the fact that he was the sperm donor, but he would undoubtedly call himself her father and that would have made things very awkward.

"Look, there's a lot you don't know about Uncle Mego, kiddo. Let's just say, my brothers all have the same genetic problems I got," Shego pointed out and Jayden nodded because that made sense.

"Then who?" Jayden wondered aloud. Knowing that her mothers used someone they knew, she started thinking. Her eyes went wide. "Not Uncle Ron!" she gasped.

"Why that reaction?" Kim asked, a bit insulted for her best friend.

Shego laughed. "I told you," she boasted to Kim. She knew that they needed to stay away from Ron all of those years ago and it seemed like Jayden agreed.

"What do you two have against Ron?" Kim inquired in a perplexed tone. God, she loved the guy like a brother and they were making it seem like there was something wrong with him.

"Nothing!" Jayden insisted sincerely. She did not have anything against the man that she looked as an uncle.

Shego smirked and decided to tease their baby since they were trying to go back to normal. "You just don't want be related to Bo like that," she commented.

"What!" Jayden gasped in outrage. "What's that supposed to mean?" she inquired her slightly chubby cheeks puffed out in adorable indignation.

"Come on, you're always sharing your lunch with him," Shego taunted the child.

"It's just lunch! And…and…and he likes tuna! And…I don't like boys anyway!" Jayden proclaimed, folding her arms over her chest.

Shego and Kim could not help laughing at that. They knew that Jayden was not declaring her dislike of boys in some childish way, but lately she had been trying to convince everyone that she was a lesbian because she thought her mothers were. Well, most people figured that Jayden insisted that she was lesbian because she believed her mothers were.

Little did she know, but Kim would still say that she was bisexual, even though she was very much attracted to and deeply, hopelessly in love with her wife. Shego had yet to figure out what the hell she was; she just knew that she loved Kim with all of her heart and that was enough for her. They just let Jayden go on because they believed that as she got older, she would know exactly what she was. She tended to make the right decisions for herself, although every now and then she did require assistance with it.

"Okay, you don't like boys, or so you say," Shego remarked with a taunting smile.

"I don't!" Jayden insisted vigorously. "Well, if not Uncle Ron…" She started thinking about her question again and then it seemed to hit her like a rock. Her mouth fell open and her olive eyes widened as much as they could. "Uncle Felix…" she realized. She used to have his hair color, after all. Well, she could not really remember having his hair color, but she saw baby pictures of her enough to know that her hair was brown at one point in time. She was just so used to seeing black when she looked in the mirror, her mind usually just took that as her normal hair color.

"Yes, your Uncle Felix is the one that helped us out in having you," Kim confirmed.

Jayden nodded and was silent. She just wanted to take that in. Her mothers were not sure what the pregnant pause meant that was hanging in the air, but to avoid having Jayden get emotional once again, Kim continued on.

"Jade, baby, Felix did this to help us. To give us you and I know you might be wanting for a dad, but…" Kim trailed off because she was not even sure where to go beyond that. She did not want to tell Jayden straight out that Felix was not her father because he did not sign on for that. In fact, he signed off on that, putting his signature on a contract that took away any and all parental rights to Jayden.

"It's okay, Mom," Jayden chimed in, surprising her mothers.

"It's all right?" they both echoed in shock. From the way that things were going that morning, they thought that it was going to be the end of the world by the time they got around to telling her what she wanted to know.

"Yeah, it's all right. I…I understand," Jayden assured them. She finally did understand and she was glad for that. She was also glad to have the answer for her question just to get it off of her mind.

"You do?" they asked, still in shock. They looked absolutely puzzled, even though they knew that they should just be overjoyed that their daughter understood and accepted things.

"I do. I get it and I accept it. You're my parents and I wouldn't want it any other way. I'm glad Uncle Felix helped you have me. That was a pretty big thing for him to do," Jayden said.

"It was," Kim assured her.

"But, he did it to help you have me. I understand it finally. I was just curious about who it was. I'm not looking for another parent or a father or anything like that. I just wanted to know," the teen said as if she just realized it.

For Jayden, finding out who had given her mothers the means to have her was enough. She had not expected that, but she felt like a burden had been lifted from her shoulders. It was no longer a mystery about how her mothers had her and that was all she needed. She was very happy for that because the turmoil that had been swirling around her heart and soul was lifted; she had never liked that feeling, which was one of the reasons that she had obviously lost her mind that morning. But, it was gone now, and she hoped that it never, ever came back.

"So, everything's fine?" Kim asked curiously, hope dancing in her olive green eyes.

"Yeah," Jayden answered in a low, satisfied voice. "Everything is fine. Thanks for being honest with me," she said and she leaned down and kissed her mothers on their cheeks, which caused them to smile.

"We're always going to be honest with you, little Pumpkin," Shego said as she and Kim hugged their daughter again.

Jayden nodded; history had taught her that her mothers would always be honest with her. She just needed to give them a chance. They were outstanding parents; she had to give them that. She did not want to replace them or hurt them. She just needed to know that one bit of information and now she could move on with her life.

"Um…does Razi know about this?" Jayden asked curiously.

"That's something we'd have to ask her parents," Kim answered.

Jayden nodded again. She supposed that Raziya's parents probably did not tell her. She guessed that it was not her place to say anything about it, but maybe one day, she could sit down with the Renton family and Raziya could find out that they were sisters by blood. She actually doubted that it mattered anyway. She and Raziya were close enough to where they felt like family already before she found out about things.

"I'm just glad we got this all sorted out," Shego commented with a relieved sigh.

"Hugs!" Jayden screamed with a grin. She and Kim attached themselves to Shego, who just surrendered to the attack.

"Me too!" Todd hollered as he dived into the fray, crushing them all. The ladies all groaned and he grinned sheepishly, seeming to forget that he weighed close to the same as all of them put together. "Sorry about that," he apologized with a small smile.

--------------

Jayden was about to go to bed. She was worn out from the day thanks to being all worked up. She was happy that they got that out of the way, though. She pulled back her covers, Care Bears of course, and flopped down. Just as she was about to close her eyes, her door opened. She sat up to see her Mommy enter.

"Monster, you sleeping?" Shego asked curiously into the dark room.

"No, I'm still up, Mommy," Jayden answered while sitting up.

"Oh, good. I wanted to talk to you for a minute," Shego said as she came into the room, closing the door behind her. She went to the bed and sat down at the foot of the bed. Jayden remained as she was.

"This is about this morning, right?" the teen guessed.

"Yeah. Baby, I don't think you'll ever know how sorry I am for hitting you like that," Shego said sincerely and she would have continued, but Jayden jumped in.

"Mommy, it's fine," the girl tried to assure her mother as she crawled over to the green-skinned woman. "I shouldn't have said that stuff. I mean…I know it…um…well…" the teen trailed off because she was not sure how to say the words that she wanted to say, not to her Mommy anyway.

"What?"

"I hurt your feelings," Jayden said and it sounded very odd to her. Not just that she had done something so callous and cruel to her own mother, but that someone like her mother could have her feelings hurt by a thirteen-year-old kid.

"Okay, you did," Shego admitted, not that that made things better. She looked away for a moment before focusing her eyes back on her daughter. "But, that's doesn't give me the right to hit you."

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, it didn't hurt," Jayden said with a bit of a smile.

Shego chuckled slightly. "It doesn't help, but at least you have a strong jaw."

"Mommy, we both made mistakes today and I forgive you for hitting me because I feel like I deserved it. I mean, I love you so much and you're my hero, so I know I was stupid for saying something like that. Besides, I know you love me like a daughter," Jayden said.

"Damn right I do since you are my daughter," Shego said while wrapping her arms around the girl. "I love you beyond anything I could ever explain, mini-monster. I don't want you to ever forget that or have a moment of doubt again."

"I won't. I was just worked up, Mommy."

"I know how that can be. As you see, I do some really dumb-ass things when I'm worked up. I don't want you to be like that, Jade. So, you work passed this thing here and grow up to be better than me," Shego said while hugging the girl tightly to her.

"Better than you, Mommy?" Jayden echoed like it was impossible for her to fathom such a thing.

"Try to be like your Mom when it comes to your temper, monster. She's got a lot of patience…at least when it comes to big things."

Jayden nodded; she guessed that her Mom did handle things a bit better than she and her Mommy did. Well, she knew that Kim handled what happened that morning better than they had. Sure, she did not think that it was the best because it seemed like Kim had sided with Shego, but she would concede that her memory of the moment might not be the best considering how upset she had been.

"We should both try," Jayden proposed.

"It's a deal, monster," Shego replied.

--------------

Felix and Monique decided to call Kim and Shego later that night to find out what happened with Jayden. They waited until Raziya was asleep because they did not want to chance her overhearing the conversation. They dialed Kim on the Kimmunicator to make sure that they did not wake up the Possible-Gooding household. They found out that the Kimmunicator was going through technical difficulties, though; it was all static. They did not know it, but sometimes Jayden took the device apart and got distracted before she got around to putting it back together. They called the house after that.

"Hello?" a small groggy voice answered the phone. They knew it was Todd.

"Smiles, put your mothers on the phone, please," Felix requested.

"Mothers?" Todd grumbled as if he did not know what those were. "Hold on a sec," he replied.

"I hope he makes it to them," Monique remarked. From the way Todd sounded, she would be surprised if he did not forget they were on the phone and just fall right back to sleep.

"Yo?" Shego grumbled into the phone something similar to Todd.

"You're all asleep?" Felix asked in disbelief. He thought that the Possible-Gooding house never went to sleep with the energy that three of the family members had and Shego always struck him as a night person.

"It was a rough day," Shego answered in a mumble.

"Yeah, we heard," Monique said.

"Which is why we're calling," Felix added.

"You heard?" Kim echoed in a perplexed voice that was scratchy from sleep. How did they know, she asked herself. She wondered if they were psychic. She obviously needed to go back to sleep.

"Razi said that Jade came by this morning crying about…the issue," Monique explained.

"We wanted to know how you handled it," Felix said.

"We let her ask a bunch of questions and she figured it out on her own. You don't have to worry about her coming to pester you or nothing if that's the problem," Shego answered. She was getting a bit defensive already for Jayden, assuming that Felix might think that Jayden wanted him to play the father for her or something like that.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down," Felix replied, practically feeling Shego's mood in intense waves through the phone.

"We know Jade is your daughter," Monique assured Shego while wondering if Kim was even still on the line since the redhead had not reined Shego in.

"But, Razi is another matter," Felix chimed in.

"Jade understands that it's your place to tell Razi, but I think she'd like you to," Kim replied; apparently, she was still conscious.

"And we'd like to go back to sleep," Shego added on quite honestly.

"Umm…sure, talk to you later," Felix said. Monique chimed in with a "goodnight" and the line went dead.

Monique and Felix looked at each other. They had to formulate a plan now on how to tell Raziya about things. They had doubts that the discussion would go well since it seemed that Raziya had picked up a bit of a temper hanging around Mayah and Jayden so much.

--------------

The next morning was a tense for the Renton family. They sat down for a nice breakfast at Monique's insistence, which Raziya thought was odd. They were usually all on the move in the morning, eating while wandering through the house for things that they would need for the day. Raziya also happened to pick up on the seeming discomfort coming from both of her parents.

"Um…what's going on?" Raziya asked in a cautious tone while looking down at what appeared to be a tasty breakfast. Home-fries, scrambled eggs with cheese, bacon, and toast were always good in her opinion. She just wondered why she was being treated to such a delight.

"Razi…we need to talk," Felix started.

"About Jayden," Monique came in.

"Am I in trouble for letting her in yesterday? I thought it was all right for her to come in whenever," Raziya explained with an almost excited look on her face. She was ready to get worked up if she was going to get in trouble.

"No, no. That's fine. Jade's always welcomed here, just like your other friends. Just not in groups when we're not around," Monique informed the girl.

The teen nodded. "Okay, that's what I thought. So, what's the problem?"

"It's about the…issue from yesterday," Felix offered.

Raziya nodded again. She was starting to have her suspensions of "the issue." Yesterday, after noting her parents' reaction to it, she thought back to the other times "the issue" had been brought up. As far as her memory was concerned, they always had a peculiar, rigid, almost shell-shocked response to it. She just could not find it in her to voice her theory. After all, what if she was wrong? Worse yet, what if she was right?

"Razi…the thing is…" Monique trailed off, glancing away for a moment. She just could not bring herself to say it out loud and she was not sure why. She knew that she was over what happened between Felix and Kim; she had been for years now. Maybe she just was not up for Raziya's reaction, sensing that it was not going to be favorable.

Raziya looked between her parents, whose eyes were shifting around the room when they were not looking directly at the table most of the time. Their posture was tense; they were sitting stiff as wooden planks. They were nervous, they were uncomfortable, and they could hardly look up. She was probably right, she thought with dread. Might as well find out, her mind told her.

"You're Jayden's biological father, Daddy?" Raziya asked, a lump forming in her throat as the question escaped it. She needed him to deny that or she was pretty certain that she would explode from a rush of emotions.

Felix opened his mouth to talk, but nothing came out. He turned to Monique, hoping that she had something, anything. All Monique could do was nod, giving him permission to confirm it if he wished. He sighed.

Felix then took a deep breath and turned to look his daughter dead in the eye. She deserved his respect, after all. He also wanted it to seem like things were all right. The new knowledge did not change their family in any way.

"I am," he affirmed. He was actually glad that Raziya was smart enough to figure it out because he doubted that he would have been able to say it aloud. "Do you want to know why?" he asked curiously.

Raziya was silent for a moment. Her mind was trying to assure that her father had not just confirmed that he was Jayden's father, but her ears were insisting that he did. Her hands suddenly clenched into little fists and she slammed them down forcefully, shaking the little dining room table.

"How could you!" Raziya hollered as fury darkened her cerulean eyes. "How could you not tell me until now! How could you not tell Jade! You know all of the emotional bullshit she's been through thanks to stupid people in our school about not having a father! You should've said something!"

"Sweetheart, calm down," Monique implored the child.

"And how could you do this to Mommy?!" Raziya screamed as if she just realized that her mother was impacted by the situation too. Tears welled up in the teen's eyes. "How could you have another child with someone that's Mommy's friend! Didn't you think about our family at all?"

Felix was planning to respond, but Raziya dashed away from the table. She ran to her room and locked herself in. Her parents' sighed; that certainly went worse than they thought it would.

----(Next day)

Raziya was standing on a bridge in the large, lush Run Park; the finest park in all of Go City. She was looking out onto the deep, blue pond, seemingly oblivious to the world. Her eyes reflected that her mind was probably a million miles away from her current location. She was surprised when she heard a voice next to her.

"You called?" Jayden asked in a sing-song voice, causing Raziya to yelp in shock and to nearly jump out of her skin.

"Don't sneak up on me like that!" the older girl scolded the now laughing raven-haired teen.

"You should see your face!" Jayden replied, holding her sides with one hand and actually slapping her knee with the other.

"What a bratty little sister," Raziya grumbled with a frown as she folded her arms across her chest.

The word "sister" seemed to suck all of Jayden's mirth out of her like a black-hole. Her face fell; she needed to hope someone did not walk by and trip on her chin. Raziya would have laughed at the expression if times were less serious.

"Yeah, my parents told me," Raziya said in a normal, almost neutral. "That's why I called you out here, so we could talk about it."

Jayden shrugged, looking away for a moment and then turning her attention back to the other teen. "Fair enough." She set up herself up next to the blue-eyed girl, flipping up to the guardrail of the bridge and sitting down. Raziya just leaned against the railing.

"You know, for all my big talk, I reacted the same way you did when they told me. I cried and threw a big hissy fit. Just all around disgraceful behavior," she remarked with a scoff and a disappointed look on her face.

"So, you're still coming to terms with it?" the younger girl inquired.

"You're the last chapter in this Greek tragedy of the past few days," Raziya answered. After realizing that she had thrown a horrible tantrum, she had gone back to talk things out with her parents. She was all right with them after days of conversation, most explaining the situation to her and them talking about how it did not really change their family or anyone else's family.

"Ah, the old 'where do we go from here' thing, eh?" Jayden asked with a slight nod.

"Yeah…" Raziya said with a nod of her own. "You know…I always wanted a sister."

"I know. You always whine about Mayah and Chyna, after all. Well, Razi, can't say your parents never gave you anything, huh?" Jayden remarked with a good-natured smile. "Or maybe you should just be careful what you wish for," she joked, speaking in a spooky voice to add to it. Raziya almost did not think it was fair about how calm Jayden was with the whole situation.

"You're all right with me seeing you as a sister? I mean, I know we have the same Daddy—" Raziya was cut off.

"Stop right there, Razi. He's not my daddy. I get what you were saying to me before, so now I think you need to get it. Your dad helped out my mothers, but he's not my dad," Jayden explained and she watched her companion's expression fall, so she decided to continue. "But, that doesn't mean we can't be sisters, though. I kinda looked at you like that anyway."

Raziya nodded. "Yeah?"

"I mean, we grew up together and everything and you're always there when I need you. Plus, you're always there to blow stuff up with me. Sure, you're bitchy about it a lot of the time, but nobody's perfect." Jayden shrugged and smiled her usual bright, cheerful grin.

Raziya smiled a little bit. "When did you get so smart?"

"Happened yesterday. I banged my head and all of a sudden I knew a bunch of shit," Jayden joked and that got a laugh out of the older girl.

"Are we really so well-adjusted that we can make this work?" Raziya asked curiously with some disbelief in her voice.

Jayden grinned widely. "Nope. We are just so completely insane that we can make this work. Besides, how many best friends are lucky enough to be sisters too?"

Raziya smiled. "You make a point. If anything, this should just make our friendship stronger. So, how about we go build so giant robots?" she suggested.

"Robot lizards and you got a deal," Jayden replied.

"You are so your Mom's child," the blue-eyed teen commented with a laugh while shaking her head. "Come on, let's go." Raziya began walking off.

Jayden slid down from the guardrail and trotted up to Raziya's side. "Good thing our parents told us before I ended up hitting on you or something," the younger girl remarked.

"Jade, you're not a lesbian, so stop trying," Raziya said with a sigh. She shook her head. What were they going to do with Jayden?

"What? I am! I totally am!" Jayden argued.

The pair shared that argument on their way out of the park. They had always been close, so it was kind of comforting to know that they were sisters. Although Raziya was pretty sure that if given a choice, she definitely would not chose to be related to Jayden with the way the girl acted.

--------------

Next time: the crew start high school. They're in for a surprise.


	48. Reason Fortyeight: Higher education

I don't own these characters. I don't own the original premise behind this saga. I own my usual suspects.

Warning: there are four chapters left.

Reason Forty-eight: Higher education

_Who would've thought they'd live this long?_

"High school, we made it! In your face, Mommy!" Jayden cheered as she and her usual clique made their way to the new building that they would be occupying for the next four years. The new section of the campus that they were going to be occupying was huge, giving the high-schoolers plenty of open area to hang out, study, and do other things.

"Jade, could you be just a little louder? I mean, I still have a little hearing left in my fucking ears," Mayah remarked with a teasing, yet sinister looking smile.

Jayden merely grinned, showing all of her teeth as she did so. The crew were all sporting their new high school uniforms…in their own unique ways. Jayden had developed a taste for baggy clothes, so her uniform was a few sizes too big. She had on black pants, but a red blazer with a white tee-shirt with Cheer Bear on it under the blazer since the rules were loose about uniforms now that they were in high school. She had on her now typical slip-on canvas sneakers with Care Bears drawn on them thanks to Raziya.

Raziya had on a tan school blazer that she had altered to turn it into sort of a half-jacket that stopped just above her bellybutton. Underneath that she was wearing white tank-top with tan capri pants. She had tan laced sandals to top off her outfit. Mayah loved the sandals and she had been threatening to steal them all summer, which was something that she could follow through on because all of the girls wore the same shoe size despite the fact they were different heights.

Mayah had on the skirt version of the uniform. Her blazer was a deep, rich cobalt as was the skirt. She was very willing to show off some leg now that she was a teenager it seemed. She had a bit of a sway to her too, which made her parents a little nervous; heaven help any boy that looked at her while they were around. She was filling out her clothes in a way that made her parents even more nervous. They actually hoped that she did not do much more growing out, but they were fine with her growing up.

Mayah was not only the curviest member of their group, but also the tallest. Bokuden was glad to find that he was not the shortest one in the crew anymore, having hit a growth spurt over the summer. Jayden was now the shortest, but did not seem to notice or care. She was also the thinnest one, as well as the least curvy girl among them, which she did not care about.

Bokuden was dressed in uniform vest, black in color. His pants matched his vest as well as his boots. He was wearing a sleeve-less, white compression shirt underneath his vest, showing that he was gaining some muscles after puberty hit. He walked with his hands in his pockets and a somewhat sleepy look in his eyes. He was in need of a bit of a haircut or at least a brush because his blonde hair was standing on end in some areas and falling in his face in others; it was not by design.

"Late on the first day," Bokuden muttered in a disapproving tone, shaking his head.

"Sorry about that," Jayden apologized with a sheepish look on her face. She had overslept after spending the day before running around with her Mom. Shego told Kim that it was not a good idea to take Jayden on an adventure the day before school started, but Kim and Jayden swore that everything would be fine. Shego had a good time gloating that morning.

"Yeah, sorry about that," Raziya chimed in right after the ebony-haired girl. She had gotten out of the apartment late because she was trying to find an outfit that she felt was appropriate for the first day of school.

"I third that one," Mayah said with a bit of a pout. It felt like it had taken her forever to find the loafers that she wanted to wear that morning.

Bokuden shrugged the apologies off because it was not like it was the first time that they were late on the first day. It was not like it was the first time it was all of their faults too. He did not really mind since he was kind of used to it. He was not really in a rush to get to school either.

The quartet entered the large building that was the main building of their new high school. The wide halls were lined with flyers already, clubs looking for new members as soon as possible, teams advertising try-outs, and just about everything else. Bokuden and Mayah just hoped that there was not a flyer advertising a science fair. As they traveled the magnificent halls, searching for their locker assignments, they ran into a new fixture in their lives.

"Hey, you four, where do you think you're going?" a voice barked from behind them.

Hmm, they all thought; the same smart-ass idea filling their heads. They were dressed in uniforms walking the halls of a school with their book-bags hanging on their shoulders, so they were probably going to class. They turned around while wondering which one of them was going to voice that very obvious thought. As they turned around, they were faced to face with a large, brunette man dressed in a brown suit.

"I didn't know they hired cavemen to work in the school now," Jayden remarked an eyebrow arched.

"News to me too," Raziya commented while Mayah nodded. Bokuden chuckled a bit while betting the huge man did not know what he was getting into.

"What was that?" the man demanded to know, practically shouting down at the crew.

"I dunno. I don't make it a habit to repeat myself until I know who the fuck people are and why the fuck what I'm doing is any of their business," Jayden answered as if that was a normal thing to say. Well, of course, it was normal for her.

"Good philosophy in life," Mayah backed her up.

"Yelling generally doesn't help either," Bokuden added. They all hated it when people screamed at them; it seemed so disrespectful.

"Oh, you four must want detention on your first day," he seemed to threaten them.

"If you can make it stick…" Bokuden muttered and then shrugged almost lazily. Most teachers had found out that having them in the same room for detention was never a good idea and others had learned that putting them in separate rooms was a good way to lose them.

"Umm…Excuse me, sir, but who are you?" Raziya inquired with a curious look on her face. She figured since they were about to make it a point to piss the guy off, they might as well know what the hell he did in the school.

"Mister Barkin. I'm a dean," he informed them in a haughty tone. He then looked at all of them and zeroed in on Mayah. "You look familiar," he commented.

"Is he hitting on me?" Mayah asked with a disgusted and horrified look on her face. Her question seemed to anger Barkin and he went back to his original line of questioning to avoid such a misunderstanding.

"Now, what are you little delinquents doing in hall?" he demanded again, still shouting at them for the most part. He also took a moment to point at them, not at anyone in particular, but in their direction.

"Barkin?" Mayah and Jayden echoed, an eyebrow each going up in confusion. He seemed to be named quite appropriately, they thought.

"Hmm, Jade might be right about the caveman thing," Bokuden commented while rolling his eyes. He turned his attention away from the man, figuring that the girls would tear into him like they did for everyone else.

"Sir, we're wearing school uniforms, got book-bags, walking in the hall, we're probably students going to class," Raziya remarked, motioning with a sweep if her hand to each item as she said them.

The dean frowned at the lot. "You all think you're pretty clever, don't you?" Barkin huffed.

"Yeah, we got notes that say so and shit like that," Jayden replied with a smug look on her face. In her head, she was sarcastically commenting that they were in the presence of an obvious genius.

"Hey, language like that is totally unacceptable around here," Barkin said, putting an index finger in Jayden's face.

Jayden looked down at the digit directed toward her. Her friends looked too, wondering how things were going to end. Mayah knew that if Jayden did not promise the guy a broken finger, she would get to it because there was no way someone was going to disrespect one of them, even if that someone was a staff member of the school.

"Okay, you're clearly a jackass and I'm not going to stand here to deal with a jackass," Jayden said and she turned around to walk away. It took a lot of willpower on her part to do that, but it would seem that Barkin wanted to tempt fate.

Barkin grabbed Jayden by the shoulder as she was about to walk away. From that move, he found himself being grabbed by all four friends. He was a bit taken aback by that, but did not waver.

"You four just brought yourselves detention," Barkin informed them.

"And you just made four very annoying, but powerful enemies," Jayden replied with a demonic smirk that made Barkin gulp. His four years of their high school career was going to be some that he never would forget.

--------------

"You're home pretty late," Betty commented as Mayah entered the house. "Did you guys go hang out or something?" she called to the teen from her office.

"No, we got detention," Mayah answered as she poked her head in the door. She looked mighty sour about things. Her tone reflected that.

"Detention? On your first day?" Betty asked in a somewhat surprised tone while turning her attention to her daughter. Mayah and her friends, they were always doing new, bad things.

"Yeah, the dean's a real hard-ass and he gave us detention after making us late for homeroom," Mayah reported in a grumpy tone.

"I thought you made you guys late for homeroom," the one-eyed woman remarked with a teasing smile.

"Okay, honestly, me, Jade, and Razi made us all late for homeroom, but this jackass dean made us later than we were gonna be," the teen argued.

"Sounds like that wouldn't have happened if you were all just on time, eh?" Betty pointed out.

"Mommy, you're not helping. If you met this jackass, you'd understand why I'm so pissed at him," Mayah huffed, disliking that her mother was actually trying to antagonize her while she was already annoyed.

"Don't let him get to you, Mee-mee. Just try not to give him an excuse to give you any more detentions," Betty replied, even though she knew that was not possible. The little group of four seemed to have to get into trouble.

Mayah just waved her mother off and dismissed the dean by changing the topic of discussion. "Whatcha working on?" she inquired while nodding toward the computer on the desk in front of her mother.

"Same as always. Trying to keep everything in order while they're opening another department upstate," Betty answered.

"All you do is work, Mommy," Mayah said with a bit of a smile. She was proud of all of the work that her mother did, but she did think that the woman needed to cut loose every now and then.

Betty smiled too, her face glowing from the fond emotion spreading through her. "It's a great thing to watch something you created grow and extend, whether it's a child or a law enforcement agency."

"So far, I think the agency is doing a bit better than the kids," Mayah teased.

"I like my work on the kids much more than the agency, thank you very much," the one-eyed woman replied, still smiling.

Mayah smiled, tickled by the fact that her mother was proud of her and her siblings despite the fact that Mayah felt they had not done anything outstanding enough for their parents to be proud of them for. One day, Mayah said silently to herself; one day, they were all definitely going to do something worthwhile to where their parents could point to them and proudly declare that those were their progeny. And then, people would tell their parents that they had done a great job on bringing them up.

----(New day)

Students on the outside of the academy's high school ducked for cover as an explosion sounded, breaking several windows on the second floor in the east wing, the science wing. Near white smoke poured out the windows, looking almost like dense fog. On the inside, the door to the lab was open and four coughing students fell into the hall.

"I fucking told you those weren't the right connections," Jayden muttered from her space on the floor.

"You didn't tell me anything!" Raziya huffed, moving about violently for a moment.

"I think she did," Bokuden mumbled.

"You taking her side?" Raziya growled at the half-Japanese boy.

"Wouldn't dream of it," he replied with a bit of a drawl in his speech thanks to the explosion.

"Why am I not surprised it's you four?" Mister Barkin inquired as he made his way into the hall and saw the four teens laid out.

"Because only we could do something this cool," Jayden answered as if that was obvious with a smile, like she was proud of blowing the lab up.

"I don't think nearly killing ourselves qualifies as cool anymore," Mayah argued. It was cool when they were ten, but now it just qualified as failure for whatever they were attempting to do in her mind.

"You four must love detention," Barkin remarked with an arrogant smile on his face. It seemed that he liked giving them detention from the look on his face.

"Yes, sir!" Jayden replied and Barkin balked because she saluted him along with the response. The only thing was that she saluted him with one finger.

"You think I won't suspend you for this?" Barkin demanded to know considering how nonchalantly the four bad seeds were taking things.

"No," they all answered honestly. They had never been suspended before and they were skeptical that things would start with him. How wrong they were.

"Son of a bitch!" Jayden and Mayah hollered as the crew were all handed suspensions.

Raziya concurred with her own, "S.O.B!" Bokuden was silent, but his face was practically on the floor.

--------------

"How the fuck did you get suspended?" Shego demanded to know when Jayden came home with a slip of paper explaining that she was not welcomed at school for the next week. She was not particularly mad at Jayden; she actually wondered how the hell her daughter went so many years without being suspended. But, she was upset with the suspension.

"This new damn dean is an asshole. We accidentally blew up a lab again," Jayden replied in a huff as she flopped down on the sofa. She folded her arms across her chest and frowned. She looked about as pleased as her Mommy did with her suspension.

"Oh, great. You must not want to go to college, monster," Shego remarked. Despite her humor, she was scowling deeply.

"You pay those things out of my college fund?" Jayden inquired in shock, her jaw dropped almost down to the floor.

Shego chuckled. "Of course not."

"What're we gonna do about the suspension, Mommy? Isn't it bad for my college chances to have that on my record?" the teen asked with concern.

"Don't worry, imp. I'll take care of it. I'm guessing your crew got suspended too," the pale woman commented.

"We all got suspended," Jayden sighed and shook her head.

"Don't worry about it, Jade. I'll handle it," Shego promised.

Jayden nodded, having faith in her Mommy. Since that was done with, Jayden decided to go into some trouble in the house. Shego decided to get on the phone with Betty to arrange a trip up to the school as soon as possible.

"I was just about to call you," Betty commented as she picked up the phone.

"I figured as much since your little clone got suspended with my mini-monster today," Shego replied.

"What's this sudden bullshit about anyway? They've blown up at least six science labs and now they suspended?" Betty wondered aloud. It did not make any sense to her.

"According to Jade, there's a dean that's an asshole," Shego explained.

"That's what Mayah's been saying. I guess we'll have to find out for ourselves. You want to go up there tomorrow in the morning before going to work?" Betty proposed.

"Then we have to go to work after that," Shego groaned.

"Hell yeah, we've got to go to work. We're about to be running a state-wide organization. Now's not the time to falter, my friend," Betty remarked, smiling over the phone.

Shego sighed; why did she sign on with Betty's organization so long ago? Now, she had to ride things out and Betty had no intention of stopping any time soon. It was nice to see her friend's dreams coming true, but she wished that she could stop and take a breather.

"All right, in the morning," Shego agreed with a sigh.

"You'll rally the other troops?" Betty inquired.

"I'll leave that to Pumpkin," Shego answered.

Betty conceded that matter. They disconnected the call and Shego waited for her active spouse to come in. Kim came in and fell on the sofa, where Shego was still sitting. Shego chuckled a bit while cradling her lover's head in her lap. Kim smiled and closed her eyes, ready for a nap it seemed.

"Don't get comfortable. I have to get up and make dinner in a little while," Shego warned her wife.

"No," Kim mumbled while curling into Shego's stomach. She nuzzled her nose into the flat abdomen of her mate.

"Yes. You're going to be hungry in a little while after all. Besides, the kids have to eat too," Shego pointed out.

"Hmm…" Kim nodded to show that she understood.

"Hey, you know what our mini-monster did today?"

"What?"

"She got herself suspended," the pale woman informed her smaller wife. She said it as if it was a normal thing, wondering how Kim was going to react.

"Suspended?" Kim echoed as if she did not know what that was. She remained in place; it seemed that it did not completely register to her brain just what happened with their daughter.

"Yup, her and her usual terrors got suspended for blowing up another science lab," Shego explained.

"They blew up a science lab and got suspended?" Kim looked as puzzled as she sounded. Nothing was adding up for her. The kids had never been suspended before, especially not for blowing up a science lab. It was typically understood that such actions were a mistake, especially since the kids were never in there without permission.

"Yeah, me and Betty are going up there tomorrow to fight this one. You coming?"

"Yeah, I'm coming. I'll call Ron, Yori, Mo, and Felix and tell them all we're going in the morning," Kim declared.

Shego nodded, figuring that Kim would do something like that. Kim made her phone calls while Shego went to make dinner. They set everything up. They were all going to the school tomorrow to find out what was with the suspensions.

----(Next day)

The principal of the academy's high school was assaulted by four angry families very early in the morning, before school started. The parents wanted to get the matter settled before class started, so that their kids could get to class without any problems coming up. The principal seemed to be shocked by the news that the four freshmen had been suspended, especially since a science teacher explained that they were in the lab permission. They were working on a science experiment; it obviously had not gone as they hoped.

The principal called in the man that issued the suspensions. The families all turned as he entered the conference room that the principal had ushered them into. The adults faces all fell when they saw who was responsible for suspending their kids.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Shego and Betty demanded to know when they set their eyes on Steve Barkin. Their kids were a bit shocked by the outrage in their voices.

"Betty?" Steve muttered in shock while his eyebrows went up in surprise.

"Betty?" Mayah echoed and she leaned over to her friends. "This bozo knows my mom?"

"I think he knows all our parents," Raziya commented because of everyone's reaction. "But, I think he knows your mom just a little bit better than everyone else," she added since he had said Betty's name specifically.

"You suspended our kids?" Shego demanded to know in a huff, pointing a threatening finger at the decided jackass.

"What's a pigheaded lout like you doing being allowed around kids?" Betty inquired in disbelief. It seemed that the others did not even have to speak because Shego and Betty were carrying everything for them.

"Your kids?" Steve echoed and then he looked over at the four teens. "Those delinquents are your kids? That explains a lot," he remarked while folding his arms across his barrel chest.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Monique demanded to know, jumping in because she was not about to let anyone insult her baby.

"Okay, now I know more than ever this suspension is bullshit," Shego declared, turning her mouth up in aggravation.

"Lemme guess, the ring leader is yours," Steve said to Shego. His tone was mocking and bland.

"She's not our leader!" Mayah and Raziya objected while pointing to Jayden. Like hell they would let the youngest and craziest among them lead them anywhere!

"No, no, no, I'll agree with that one. Definitely the leader around here," Jayden commented with a grin. The raven-haired teen folded her arms across her chest and that the nerve to look smug, which earned her a punch in the shoulder from Mayah.

"Don't act stupid! You couldn't lead a thirsty dog to water with hotdogs tied to your neck!" Mayah proclaimed with a frown.

"Look, how about you not be a dick for the only time in your life and take away their suspensions before this gets ugly," Shego suggested, speaking to Barkin.

"I think it's too late where this ape-man is concerned," Raziya quipped.

"Take away their suspensions? They're lucky they only got a week," Steve declared.

"We didn't do anything wrong! You're just being a jerk," Jayden countered.

"Look, skipping all of the yelling and name-calling that'll undoubtedly go on with you, Shego, and Jade in a room together," Betty started, speaking to Barkin while going into a folder. She pulled out a stack of papers and placed them down in front of her. "This is a statement prepared by the kids in which they point out that you've suspended them for no reason because they weren't in violation of any school rules. Having reviewed everything myself, I'm inclined to agree with them. Now, this can easily get ugly for no reason at all or you can simply re-admit them to school before you piss me off," she said with a growl at the end of her statement.

"You did suspend us without any cause, sir," Mayah commented, leaning forward and looking a bit haughty.

Barkin was taken back as he finally realized why Mayah looked so familiar to him. She looked just like Betty, especially when they were both glaring at him. The realization only upset him more and he decided to cling to his convictions. The kids' suspensions stayed, he decided.

"They're suspended and that's that," the former military man declared.

Barkin soon realized something else. It was hard to make an argument against a room full of angry parents and teenagers, all who were above average intelligence, and he did not have a leg to stand on considering the teens had not broken any rules in blowing up the science lab. By the end of it, Barkin was a defeated man and he was forced to apologize to the students for treating them in such a manner. The teens did not help matters by making sure to look as arrogant as possible while he apologized; Jayden grinned all the way through it.

"Stop acting crazy and get your narrow ass to class," Shego ordered her daughter when everything was decided. She lightly popped Jayden in the back of the head.

"Yes, Mommy!" Jayden squeaked and dashed off to class with her friends trailing behind her.

The parents then turned their attention to Barkin. Most of them did not want to bother with him, but Shego and Betty did stick around. Betty was glad that Dahntay had not come along; he decided to drive the younger kids to school since everyone else was going to check on the suspensions. She did not want him to have to meet her blow-hard ass of first husband.

"So, what happened, Steve, they finally figure out you're too uptight to even be in the military?" Shego teased with a smile on her face.

"I was honorably discharged for your information. I'm retired," he replied with a huff.

"So, what, you can't torment soldiers and special training officers, so now you're tormenting high school students?" Betty inquired in disbelief.

"Those kids are delinquents," he declared.

"Call my monster a delinquent again, so I can burn your lips shut," Shego said seriously with a growl and she flexed her hand. Barkin had the good sense to flinch, knowing that she meant that threat.

"Shego, calm down," Betty said and then she turned to Steve. "Listen carefully because I'm only going to say this once, you better not target them because they're our kids. If you do and they end up making you regret it, we're only going to add to your problems," she promised him.

Shego nodded in agreement. The friends then turned to leave, but Steve caught Betty by the arm. She frowned as she turned to him, ready to holler at him because she did not feel like being bothered.

"Betty," Steve said.

"Leave me alone, Steve," Betty snarled while yanking her limb back. "I don't have time to deal with you. I've got work to do and so do you. We're done and over with, so let it go," she huffed.

"I was thinking maybe we could have coffee or something," he proposed despite her words.

"No, Steve, we can't have coffee. I'm married and have been for fifteen years. I've got four kids, one of whom you've met. I don't have time to go over the horrible times we've had together. I don't want to go down that road. I'm over it and you need to get over it," she informed him.

"Four kids?" he echoed as if he did not understand. He never pictured Betty being a mother, except when he was married to her anyway.

"Don't forget the five dogs and a cat," Shego chimed in.

"That's right," Betty said and decided to hit Barkin with even more. "I've got the four kids, five dogs, a cat, not to mention a crime fighting organization that's about to take the state by storm and if we play our cards right, we'll be national one day soon too. So, no, I don't have time to have coffee with you or anything like that. Leave me the fuck alone," she said bluntly.

Barkin looked like he had been shot with a cannon. She had four kids, his mind echoed. Maybe she was just making that up to intimidate him, but then again, she did have at least one kid. Mayah was certainly hers.

He decided to call her bluff. "You're making that up."

"I'm making it up?" she echoed incredulously. "Please, you're not important enough for me to make shit up for."

Betty looked at Barkin as if he was short and vile. She then walked off with her captain, Shego. They had bigger things to worry about than Barkin thinking that she would even bother to lie to him. The Go City Bureau of Justice was going state-wide and if it all worked out, they would be a national organization before long, taking on all of the super-powered loons and mad scientists with delusions of grandeur that the country could throw at them. Betty was ready for that and did not want to think about Steve ever again.

"You think everything's going to be all right?" Shego asked. She was thinking that Barkin might try to pick on their kids, knowing that the teens were theirs.

"Please, he bothers them and he's going to pray that something stops the pain," Betty replied.

Shego nodded. "That's true. I might have to tell Pumpkin to hide her venoms and toxins just in case. I don't want those nuts to have access to stuff like that when revenge finally clubs them upside the head."

"Oh yeah. I might have to take Mayah's weapons away. Not that I know where she's hiding them all anymore. Oh, we'll never be able to fully disarm them," Betty realized.

"Ah well. He brought on himself," Shego declared with a smile.

"I'm sure he will," Betty replied with a smile of her.

Betty thought about where she had come from, life after Steve. Her mother had made it seem like walking away from him was the worst mistake of her life. Her mother still made it seem like the worst mistake of her life when she got in touch with the woman. She thought that might have something to do with the fact that Eleanor believed that Dahntay was the reason Betty had withdrawn from her for the most part. Betty had actually pulled away from her mother more because of the way the woman treated her kids than anything else.

Since leaving Steve, Betty had had four wonderful, though insane kids. They were growing up fine as far as she was concerned, even though they did get into trouble, all of them. While Mayah was busy running around with her crew, Aztek was getting into trouble on his own, and Romah hung out with Nobunaga and Chyna, which just spelled trouble and minor injuries for them and those around them.

There were the five dogs; no, Betty had not been lying about that. Unfortunately, Leonardo had died recently along with Dahntay's wolf hounds, but they all had pups. Betty kept one of Leonardo's pups from a breeding arrangement for herself and let Kim name it, as she had done with the original. Kim named the dog Galileo and he reminded them both of Leonardo. Dahntay had kept one of the puppies from his wolf hounds. Their younger three kids each had dogs. Mayah was the one with the cat.

And then, there was Betty's pet project since she graduated school, which was her law enforcement organization. She had brought it up from a little extension of the Go City Police department to what was now four independent law enforcement departments that she ran from a headquarters in the center of the city. They were soon to be opening a state department and she had been told that if things went well, there would soon be a national department. She would like to think that she was doing damn well for herself despite what her mother would like her to believe.

"Hey, Shego," Betty said.

"Yeah?" the pale woman inquired.

"Thanks for looking out for me way back when," Betty replied with a friendly, sincere smile.

Shego gave her friend and boss a half-smile. "You don't have to thank me, you silly bitch. This is the story of our lives, after all," she remarked. They looked out for each other. Sure, they did it in sometimes harsh or strange ways, but they looked out for each other and they would always do that. That was what best friends did, after all.

--------------

Next time: the kids join clubs and no one believes what Jayden joins.


	49. Reason Fortynine: Fly

I don't own these characters. I don't own the original premise behind this saga. I do own my usual suspects, though.

Warning: there are three more chapters to go.

Reason Forty-nine: Fly

_They're almost normal considering their interests…almost._

High school turned out to be one of the best things as far as the usual foursome was concerned, despite the fact that they had to put up with Dean Steve Barkin. They joined a bunch of clubs since they knew it would look good for college and, well, to be honest, the clubs seemed interesting. Unfortunately, there was no one club that they all wanted to join; there was no martial arts club or something similar to that. But, there were plenty of other things to keep them busy.

Mayah joined the debate team. Her friends went with her and tried out just for the hell of it. Jayden could have possibly made it too, if she was interested in trying because then she would have undoubtedly toned down her swearing. Instead, Jayden ended up arguing with a boy to the point where every other word that came out of her mouth was a curse. She made a good point, but no one was interested in having to have an "r" rating on the debates that year.

Raziya joined an art club and tried to be a member of the Future Engineers of America club, but found it to be boring, especially since Jayden did not join with her. Bokuden joined the chess club. And Jayden…well, she tried out for a lot of things, but did not feel the need to join anything that she tried out for. Nothing held her interest long enough for her to stay with it.

"Hey, monster," Todd called his greeting from the living room as he heard the front door open and close.

"Hey, Smiles. Mom or Mommy in yet?" Jayden inquired.

"Nope. Busy saving the world and everything," he replied with a bit of a laugh.

"Why aren't you out doing the same?" she asked while walking into the living room and flopping down on the sofa with her brother. She leaned against him since he was there.

"Got a few papers I need to be doing now," he answered with a shrug. He was graduate student now, having gotten out of undergrad in three years. He could not wait to get to some fieldwork, although he had already done plenty of it. He just loved fieldwork.

"Yet you're watching this stupid Evil Eye for the Bad Guy show," Jayden remarked while motioning to the television.

"Ah, there are worst things on. Besides, it's a marathon," he explained, as if that excused his behavior.

"Isn't Mom's show doing a marathon today too?" she asked curiously.

"Yeah, but you know I hate Kimmie's show."

Jayden made a rude noise. "I don't see how you could this crap over Mom's show."

"Because I hate how Kimmie's show is. Now, what're you doing in at this time, mini-monster? Usually, you're out raising the dead with everybody else," he commented, noting the strange time that his little sister had come in.

"Everybody else has club meetings today," she grumbled with a frown, folding her arms over her chest.

"Well, why didn't you join any clubs with them?"

"Because I stink at everything they joined…except debating. Apparently, I kick ass in debating, but they don't let you on the team if you call your opponent a 'fucking moron' while debating him," she remarked.

"Yeah, I can see where that might be a liability," he quipped with a good natured smile.

"Razi joined the damn art club. Bo even went and joined the chess team."

"Why didn't you join that?"

Jayden looked at her brother like he was an idiot and he nodded. Jayden would never make it in a club where they were quiet and sat around for the majority of the time, even if they were playing a game that exercised her brain. Then he had a thought; he knew what Jayden needed.

"You need to play a sport, imp," Todd suggested, looking down at her as he spoke.

"A sport?" she echoed with a puzzled expression. "But, they don't have martial arts or kendo or anything."

"No, no, no. I'm talking about a regular sport," he informed her. He thought it would get her to burn off some of her extra-energy.

"A regular sport?" she spoke as if she did not know what that was.

"Yes, a regular sport. This way you stay active. All your hobbies can be done at home for the most part, so you don't really need to join a club. What you should do is play a sport to stay active while your friends are all at their clubs."

Jayden looked skeptical. "But…I never played a real sport."

"So what? You're a natural athlete. I'm sure there's some sport out there that you'd pick up in no time," he assured her.

Jayden continued to look skeptical. "I dunno. Don't you need to know the rules of sports and crap like that? Not to mention, I don't really like any sports, except football anyway."

Todd smiled. "I know you like football. You cheered like a madwoman when you watched me play after all." He thought it was funny that she was always yelling at him to hit someone, even though he was an offensive player; to make matters worse he had been a running back or receiver depending on the team and time.

Jayden shamelessly grin. "You kicked ass! I wish you still played…" she muttered with a pout.

"Everything has to come to an end sometime and I like doing paleontology fieldwork. It's way better than playing football for me."

"When you discover your first thingy, name it after me!" Jayden requested with her usual huge grin.

"We'll see," he answered with a smile and he playfully rubbed her head. "I gotta find something first. But, anyway, what do you think of trying out for a sport?"

"Well…I guess it couldn't hurt, right?" she replied with a shrug.

"Nope. Besides, you know Kimmie was a cheerleader in high school, right?"

"Mom a cheerleader?" Jayden said as if she was in awe and then she started laughing her ass off, falling off the sofa. "What a loser!"

"You're an evil kid, you know that?" Todd said to his sister. He could not believe that she did not know Kim was a cheerleader, though, especially considering the fact that she watched their mother's show all the time.

Jayden just continued laughing. Their Mom was a cheerleader? Oh, that was too much. She had to know the story behind that one. So, as soon as Kim came in, she was ambushed by Jayden. It was a little funny…from Todd's point of view anyway. Jayden came out of nowhere, doing a tuck-roll move in front of Kim and then screaming like a nut while jumping into a fighting stance. Kim was caught so off-guard by the odd behavior that she fell back against the door, looking as if she might be on the verge of having a heart attack.

"Monster, are you trying to kill me?" Kim inquired while her heart rate slowed down to its usual rhythm.

"I was trying to practice falling when I heard you come in," Jayden answered to explain her erratic behavior. "Mom, Smiley said you used to be a cheerleader in high school."

"Yeah, I did. Why do you think they made my character in that show a cheerleader?" Kim pointed out as she slipped her shoes off.

Jayden appeared shocked. "No way! I thought they made that up! Like Uncle Ron being a cheerleader."

"Um…no, Ron was on the squad too," Kim answered plainly.

And Jayden was off again, laughing like a maniac. She rolled around on the floor, holding her sides, while Kim just shook her head. Kim went to get comfortable in the house while Jayden continued laughing. Once the teen was done, Kim decided to explain that being a cheerleader was nothing to be ashamed of.

"After all, being on the squad helped keep me agile for when I was chasing bad guys and stuff," Kim informed her daughter.

"Hmm…" Jayden took the words in.

----(New day)

Jayden watched the school cheerleaders from the bleachers while they were having their practice. She would never be able to do that, she thought. It was not that the moves were complex. She was sure that she could pull those off without a problem, but the cheering. There was just no way that she could do the actual cheering.

"No, I gotta try. Mom did it, so I can do it too. It'll help me be agile," Jayden reminded herself.

She was there to try-out, as were over a dozen other girls. She worked out what she was going to do and everything as far as her routine went, but she had not wrote a cheer to go with it. She just could not bring herself to do such a thing. When it was her turn, she went through her complicated workout with ease. For a while, the squad members were not sure what to make of Jayden and just watched her with puzzled expressions gracing their smooth features.

"Um…Jade…" one girl started to say, sounding totally perplexed. Many of them were familiar with Jayden considering the fact that they had been in the academy since elementary school just like her.

"Why the hell are you even trying out?" another girl finished, demanding to know that information. She looked utterly confused, throwing her arms out to the side and leaning forward to make sure she did not mess the explanation. Were they in some freaky alternative universe where a crazy tomboy like Jayden was trying to be a cheerleader?! She needed to know and so did her fellow cheerleaders.

"I wanna be a cheerleader, doy," Jayden declared as if it was obvious.

"And I wanna be taller, but I don't think that's going to happen."

"Oh, c'mon! I'd be a kick ass cheerleader!" Jayden argued, throwing her hands out to the side to emphasize her point.

"Uh-huh. Do a cheer, with words."

Jayden exhaled slowly to calm her rising annoyance. They started some music and she took a deep breath. She waited a few seconds while the squad and the other candidates watched her. The other girls trying out had been impressed with the routine Jayden had worked up and they thought that she was a shoe-in up until she tossed her pom-poms down in a huff.

"To hell with this! C'mon, guys, I can jump damn near ten feet in the air from a standing position! I can fucking do flips the length of this fucking gym!" Jayden pointed out.

"But, you can't cheer," a girl countered.

"I can't help it if the words are fucking stupid!" Jayden argued.

"Jade, if you want to be a cheerleader, you're going to have to work on the cheering part…and maybe stop cursing so much. It's not that we won't let you on, but you need to be able to cheer. So, come back and try us once you've got that down."

Jayden huffed and stormed out of the gym. She did not want to be a cheerleader anyway, she screamed in her mind. It was stupid and it was not like she could tell her friends about it. They would laugh her out of the building for doing something not only girly, but what they would view as conventional and a little conformist. So, it was good that she did not make the stupid squad.

"Hey, kid, hold on," a voice called.

Jayden turned around, just case the person was talking to her. She was confronted by a blonde woman who looked around the same age as her Mom. Jayden was a bit taken aback because of how close the woman was to her when she turned around.

"Um…you talking to me?" Jayden inquired, pointing to herself for no reason.

"Yeah, I just saw your cheerleading routine and it was really good," the blonde woman replied.

"Yeah, well, it didn't get me on the damn squad," the raven-haired teen grumbled while casting her anger-laced olive eyes to the ground for a moment.

The blonde chuckled a bit. "No, you seem to not want to do the cheering part of the whole thing," she countered in a good-natured tone.

"Cheering is stupid," the girl declared.

"Well, I wouldn't go that far. I know something you'd be good at though, since the cheering thing fell through," the blonde said.

Jayden was suspicious and her face showed that. "What would I be good at?"

"Gymnastics."

"Gymnastics?" the teen echoed and she made a face that showed she actually thought gymnastics was lower than cheerleading.

"Yes, gymnastics. I coach the gymnastics team and I'd really like you to join," the blonde woman declared with a warm, friendly smile.

"But…I don't know nothing about gymnastics," Jayden admitted, a slightly uneasy expression in her eyes. She leaned to one side a little bit too.

"It's fine. I'll show you the ropes. Are you in?" the blonde asked with a hopeful, but bright smile.

Jayden thought on it. "Will it keep me agile?" she inquired.

"Better than cheerleading."

"Then I'm in!" Jayden declared with a grin.

"Good to know. So, everybody calls me Coach Tara," the blonde introduced herself, still smiling.

"I'm Jayden. Most people call me Jade. Nice to meet you," Jayden replied with a bright grin of her own.

--------------

Jayden came in, wiped out. Never before had she thought that she could run out of energy while the sun was still up. She just wanted to get into the shower and fall into her bed for the rest of the night. But, first, there were questions.

"Monster, where the hell have you been?" Shego demanded to know as she marched to the front door to meet Jayden.

"Practice," Jayden answered honestly.

"Practice?" Shego echoed in a puzzled tone.

Jayden had not told anyone that she was going to try-out for cheerleading. She thought that it would make a nice family surprise when she came home and told them how she made it and everything. Well, things did not turn out exactly the way that she planned, but she still had a surprise.

"I'll tell you about it at dinner," Jayden promised. "Right now, I just wanna take a shower."

"As long as you fill us in on what's going on sometime tonight," Shego replied.

"At dinner," Jayden vowed again.

Shego let Jayden go and the girl dashed upstairs to get comfortable in the house. Keeping with her word, when dinner approached, Jayden was fully prepared to tell everyone the semi-good news. It was "semi-good" because she figured that she had some teasing coming her way by being on the gymnastics team, which was one of the reasons that she was not going to be telling her friends about her little accomplishment.

"Okay, everybody, I have something to say that will shock and amaze you," Jayden said in her typically dramatic fashion.

"And what's that?" Kim asked with interest as they all sat down at the dinner table for their evening meal.

"I'm on the gymnastics team at school!" Jayden declared with surprising enthusiasm. Who would have thought that the little tomboy would find gymnastics fun? She had a good time, even though she was worked over.

"You're on the what now?" Todd inquired because he was sure that he heard wrong. He had expected Jayden to come home one day soon saying she made the football team, the soccer team, or even the hockey team since she would be able to hit people. She could not have just proclaimed with a grin that she had made gymnastics, he figured.

"You said gymnastics?" Shego asked just to be sure.

Jayden nodded. "I'm on the gymnastics team. Coach Tara says I have a lot of potential. She worked me really hard today to help me get used to stuff. It's actually pretty damn fun," she informed her family with a smile.

"Who the hell are you and what have you done with the mini-monster?" Todd shouted with horror. He actually looked scared and he was pretty sure that his little sister was abducted by aliens. Surely he was looking at a cheap clone, he thought.

"Gymnastics?" Shego echoed with a bemused look on her face. Their baby girl, their little monster, liked gymnastics?

"Yeah, but don't tell anybody," Jayden pled, hands clasped together, imploring her family to keep things a secret.

"Why not?" Kim asked in a confused tone now.

"C'mon, me and gymnastics? Mayah and Razi would have a field day with this!" Jayden pointed out.

"Aw, you're worried about what your little friends think," Shego teased, reaching out an mussing the teen's raven mane.

Jayden pouted, curling her mouth up in indignation. "I don't give a damn about what they think. But, still don't say anything!" she begged.

"Your secret's safe with us," Kim promised the girl. "Right?" she asked her spouse and their son.

"Um…sure, I just reserve the right to make fun you randomly for it," Shego replied while rubbing the top of Jayden's head again to show that she approved and she was happy for their child.

"Smiley?" Kim said since he did not agree.

"No, seriously, who the hell are you and what have you done with Jade?" Todd said to his sister.

Jayden's face fell into a deadpan expression. "Smiley, you tell anybody about this and I'll fucking hurt you badly over it," she vowed in a dangerous tone.

"Oh, so you are my little sister. Don't worry, I won't say anything. But, did you say gymnastics? Like gymnastics?" he inquired, looking just as puzzled as he had at the beginning of the discussion.

"Yes, like gymnastics! Now, let it go, damn it!" Jayden ordered with a huff. Her mothers smiled a bit; she did not know it, but they thought she was cute when she was frustrated.

----(New day)

"Hey, since we don't have club meetings today, why don't we all go down to the arcade?" Mayah suggested as the usual crew made their way to their lockers to put their books away.

"I can't. I got practice today," Bokuden replied.

"Oh, right. You had to go and join the fencing team," Raziya said with a resentful sigh.

"You know, you're not faking us into thinking you're a gentleman by being in the chess club and on the fencing team," Mayah teased the blonde boy. He just smiled.

"That's okay. Without Bo, we can go shopping," Raziya pointed out with a smile of her own.

"But then we have to put up with Jade's whining about how we never go into the stores that she wants to go to," Mayah countered.

"Yeah, but we never listen to her anyway," Raziya remarked.

Mayah laughed. "Oh, yeah."

"Actually guys, I can't go either," Jayden chimed in.

Mayah and Raziya turned to their younger friend and looked at her like she had two heads. Jayden was sort of used to the look, so she did not take offense to it. Bokuden joined in on the looks; he seemed to be plain confused.

"And why can't you go?" Raziya inquired. There was a possibility that Jayden planned to meet up with one of her mothers or her brother to bug out with them as she often did, but there was also a chance that there might be something else.

"I just can't. I need to get going," Jayden replied. "Later!" She waved to them and then charged off before they could ask any relevant questions. Her friends watched her leave.

"That was weird…even for her," Mayah commented with an arched eyebrow.

"Really," Raziya concurred.

"It's probably nothing. I'll see you two later," Bokuden said while walking off in the same direction as Jayden; the locker rooms were down that way.

"Well, wanna go shopping?" Raziya asked Mayah.

"Yeah, as long as you promise to behave yourself," Mayah answered with a shrug.

"I always behave myself," Raziya commented with a wicked smile.

"You don't do your name justice, you know that?" Mayah quipped, referring to the meaning of Raziya's name, which was "pleasant" or "agreeable." She was finding her friend less "pleasant" as time went on in certain areas.

"I definitely do my name justice. I now agree with you that Smiley's cute," Raziya quipped as they walked off toward the exit.

"Hey, Smiley's mine. You stay away from him," Mayah growled in anger.

"I would if I could, but him being my best friend's brother makes that kinda hard. Besides, I don't think there's a tag on him that says 'property of Mayah Director-Jones,' so he's up for grabs," Raziya replied.

"Listen brainiac—" Mayah snarled, but she was cut off by her friend laughing.

"You're so easy to get to," the blue-eyed teen said while chuckling. Oh, it was great to tease Mayah, she thought.

"Shut the hell up!" the older girl huffed.

"What do you think Jade's up to?" Raziya wondered aloud to change the subject.

"I dunno. Jade things," Mayah answered and that was acceptable.

--------------

Jayden hit the dark blue mats on the gym floor. She was sweating to the point where it was dripping off her. She was breathing hard while her coach looked down at her with a fond smile.

"You're going to kill yourself at this rate," Tara commented.

"Like hell I am. This is nothing. Besides, it's like you said, I've got to get familiar with everything. I don't want to bring the team down," Jayden replied.

Jayden was still training while the rest of the team had gone home. She could not bring herself to workout in a unitard like the others, opting for shorts and a Care Bear tank-top. But, she did understand the core values of team work and the concept of a team thanks to growing up with her crew, so she did not want to be the weak link. She was going to be able to carry her own weight by the time they had a competition, she promised herself.

"You're a determined little thing. If you're still up for the workout, I'm here for you, kid," the coach stated.

"I'm up for it," Jayden replied.

"Then get your little behind up and get on those uneven bars!" Tara commanded in a forceful tone while pointing at the aforementioned equipment.

Jayden eeped and hopped up. Tara continued to bark at her, knowing already that it was a good way to keep Jayden moving. The raven-haired girl did get right back to work.

----(New day)

"Okay, I'm worried about Jade. This is like the fifth time she's blown us off without giving an explanation," Mayah commented, speaking to Raziya and Bokuden as they exited school.

"What, you think we should do like an intervention or something?" Raziya joked.

"She's not doing drugs," Bokuden argued, knowing that it was a joke, but still feeling the need to defend their missing partner.

"How do you know?" Mayah inquired.

"What do you know?" Raziya asked the blonde boy.

Bokuden grimaced just a bit. It was a bit overwhelming to be double-teamed by the pair; they just auras to them that did not need to be combined against him in his opinion. He put up a defensive smile and chuckled a bit.

"I don't know anything, I swear!" he assured them. And then it looked like he just remembered something. "Oh, man, I forgot to check when the next fencing meeting is! I'll be right back!" he told his friends while trotting back into the school.

"That was pretty convenient," Mayah muttered in a suspicious tone.

"A little too convenient. I think he knows something," Raziya commented while folding her arms across her chest.

"Obviously. Oh," Mayah said and it looked like she had just gotten a wild idea.

"If the thought that just went through your head has anything to do with Bo and Jade possibly meeting up after school for a secret romance, it's stupid," Raziya stated.

"But wouldn't it be cute?" Mayah replied.

"It would also explain Bo's nervousness just now and Jade not wanting to tell us since she wishes to God we'd believe she's a lesbian," Raziya added.

"I thought it was stupid," the older girl said smugly since Raziya was now adding to her theory.

"I said stupid, not unlikely," the artist replied. The duo now had a wild theory that they liked, so they were going to run with it. They felt Bokuden only added to their suspicions because of how long it took him to come back.

----(New day)

"No Jade and no Bo again," Mayah commented with a sigh.

"Well, I think our theory is starting to make more sense, even though we know for a fact that Bo had practice today," Raziya said.

"She's probably sitting in on practice with him, cheering him on like a good girlfriend would," Mayah remarked and then they both looked at each other as if they were equally disturbed.

"Yeah, never say that again," Raziya ordered.

"Don't worry, I won't. I actually got a visual image with it." Mayah shuddered.

"I think we should just double-team Bo. He'll crack and tell us," Raziya said.

"And then we'll kick Jade's ass for keeping it a secret!" Mayah declared and Raziya nodded.

--------------

Bokuden sighed as practice for fencing was finishing up. He was not as into fencing as he pretended to be, but it was something that would look good on his college applications. Plus, he got to do some sword fighting. It was not the sword fighting that he was used to, but he thought it was nice to be versatile when given the chance.

"Hey, Bo, you didn't seem too into practice today," one of his teammates commented.

"Oh…I'm just worried about something," the half-Japanese replied in a dismissive tone.

"You hang out with three gorgeous girls and you've got the nerve to have problems?"

Bokuden laughed; was that what people thought? He should be fine with everything because he hung out with three very insane girls? They were probably going to drive him out of his mind…if they had not done that already anyway. He had to worry about whatever Jayden was hiding and he also knew that Raziya and Mayah were coming up with nutty explanations for Jayden. He just did not know how nutty.

The blonde boy was off to go meet up with Raziya and Mayah to do whatever they came up with now that he was done with fencing. He sighed while dragging out of the school. He had to pass one of the gyms and would not have thought anything of it, but he heard noises coming from it.

"Come on, Jade, you can do it better than that," Tara urged the raven-haired girl.

"This routine is fucking hard," Jayden replied while falling to her knees to catch her breath.

"Jade?" Bokuden muttered. He stepped into the gym a bit more and saw the uneven bars and the balance beam were out. The balance beam was unoccupied, but the bars seemed to be getting some work in.

"Come on, Jade. Get up and try it again. I know you can get this. You get everything else, after all," Tara encouraged the girl with a smile. She had never seen anyone work the balance beam the way that Jayden did, but the work she did for the uneven bars was not living up to their standards.

Bokuden watched in amazement as Jayden climbed to her feet and went to work on the uneven bars again. His mouth practically hit the floor when she started going. Jayden was doing gymnastics, his mind commented. Wait, _Jayden_ was doing gymnastics? He made a mental note to find out if the antichrist or the four horsemen of the Apocalypse were outside the school.

"Wait, if she's doing gymnastics, then she's not on drugs or something. Yes!" Bokuden cheered in a low voice.

It was not low enough though. Jayden turned her attention to the door, gasped when saw the blonde boy, and her hand slipped. She landed face down on the mats, but was up quick.

"Bo, what the fuck around you doing here!" Jayden demanded to know and he grimaced when he realized that he was spotted. She was on him in a hot second. "Razi and Mayah, aren't with you, are they?" she demanded to know in a low voice while scanning the hallway.

"No, no, no," Bokuden answered while backing up just a bit. Having an angry Jayden right in his face was a little daunting.

"What the hell are you doing here? You're fucking spying on me?" she inquired.

"No, no, no. I just happened by! I had fencing practice and I walked by!" he replied, holding up his hands as if that made his statement more believable.

Jayden thought on things for a second. "Fine, so you walked by. Now, promise that you won't tell Razi and Mayah about this."

"What, about you doing gymnastics? I won't," he promised, although he doubted that they would believe him if he did tell them. He hardly believed it and he saw it.

"You'd better not or else," she growled while shaking her fist at him. "I'll put my hand so far down your damn throat, I'll be able to tickle your knee if you tell them."

"Don't worry! I won't say anything!" Bokuden vowed. Hey, it was the only thing that he could do to avoid feeling her wrath.

"Jade, you can talk to your boyfriend later. Let's get back to work!" Tara called. Jayden and Bokuden balked.

Jayden spoke up first. "He's not my boyfriend!"

"Yeah, I'm definitely not her boyfriend!" Bokuden backed her up.

"Don't say anything about this," Jayden reminded Bokuden before going back to her coach. "He's not my boyfriend," she repeated just for the record.

"Sure he's not," Tara teased while casting the retreating boy one last gaze. "You should go for it before someone scoops him up," she commented and she happened to say that as Jayden was leaping to grab the bars again.

The statement threw Jayden off and her face met the mat for the second time in the last five minutes. Tara could not help laughing. The teen muttered and glared at her coach, who only urged her to get up and get on those bars.

--------------

Bokuden went to meet up with Raziya and Mayah. They backed him into a corner on the street and he gulped. He had a feeling things were not about to end well for him. The Inquisition began before he could even mutter a prayer.

"You know something, ninja-boy, so spill," Mayah ordered in a forceful tone.

"Now," Raziya added in her own firm voice.

"Wha…I…" Bokuden sputtered. "I know a lot of things," he answered. Apparently, being a smartass was contagious.

"What've you and Jade been up to after school?" Mayah demanded to know.

"Me and Jade? Well, I've got fencing practice most of the time. And Jade…" he trailed off. He promised that he would not tell them, after all. "I dunno what she does! I'm just as clueless as you two," he tried to assure them.

Raziya and Mayah looked at each other. They were silently deciding on if they wanted to believe him or not. Well, Bokuden was not a liar. If he said that he did not know, he probably did not know, they figured. But, it just seemed like he knew something that he was not telling them. It did not help matters that he was trained in deception.

"Hmm…you know, it could be drugs," Mayah said to Raziya as a second theory to why Jayden was always blowing them off now.

"It's not drugs!" Bokuden argued.

"Jade wouldn't do drugs," Raziya concurred.

"Well then, what the hell! Something could be wrong and she's being a bitch by not saying anything!" Mayah huffed in a fury.

"She's not in trouble or anything. Don't worry," Bokuden tried to assure them.

"And how the hell would you know that?" Mayah asked suspiciously. Bokuden just gave a nervous smile.

--------------

Jayden was settling down to go to sleep. She fluffed her pillow, punching it a few times on the sides. She was just about to lie down, but she tensed up and put her hands up to defend herself. She turned her attention to her bedroom window as a figure dressed in black crawled in through the window. The figure looked at her and pulled off a mask. She laughed.

"Bo, you're an idiot," Jayden commented while shaking her head.

"I wanted to see if I could actually sneak in your house," he explained. He could have easily called, but he was curious if his skills were good enough for him to break into the highly secure Possible-Gooding home.

"Mission accomplished. Now, you need to get out of here because if my Mommy catches you…" Jayden left the rest of statement implied. She doubted that they would be able to imagine what her Mommy would do if she caught Bokuden in the room after hours; hell, her Mom and Todd probably would not play around either.

"I know, but we'll be quiet to avoid that, right?" or so he hoped.

"As long as you make this quick. I'm really tired," she informed him.

"I didn't know gymnastics was such hard work."

"Well, me and Coach are working my ass off. I've got a competition this weekend. My first one. I hope I don't embarrass the team too much," she commented with a bit of a laugh.

"You doing a gymnastics competition?" He could not help laughing at the very idea.

"Yeah, me doing gymnastics. What do you want anyway?" she asked with a bit of an attitude since he was making fun of her.

"Um…I think you need to tell Razi and Mayah about this. They're worried about you. They're scared that you're in trouble. They even thought you were on drugs. I know you don't want them to laugh at you, but they're really worried about you. Look, we're all friends and we always make fun of each other. This isn't going to be any different, but if you like gymnastics, you know we'll support you," he said.

Jayden rolled her olive eyes, but a moment later, she nodded. She could understand why her friends would be worried. She kept running out on them without explaining why. She knew that if one of them were doing that, she would be worried too.

"Fine, bring them to the competition this weekend and we'll clear everything up," Jayden said.

Bokuden smiled. "No problem. So, are you going to be wearing tights for this performance?" he asked with a laugh and then had to duck a pillow. Bokuden slipped out of the window before Jayden got around to throwing other, harder things in the room.

----(New day)

"Remember, be nice to her when she's done," Kim said to Shego as they sat down in the bleachers. Todd was with them.

"I'd never think to make fun of her…if she loses," Shego remarked with a smile.

Todd laughed. They settled down to get ready for Jayden's first gymnastics competition and then found out that they were not the other only ones there to cheer her on. Bokuden led Raziya and Mayah into the gym.

"What the hell are we doing here?" Mayah inquired while they took their seats.

"We're about to see some gymnasts obviously," Raziya replied.

"We're about to see an ass-kicking if you keep being a smartass, bitch," the older girl replied, sounding a bit serious.

"Oh, is that Smiles down there? I wonder if he needs me to cuddle him," Raziya purred while casting her sky-colored gaze a few rows down.

Mayah was about to cut into Raziya like never before, but something much stranger caught her attention. Raziya saw it too and her face nearly went through the bleachers. They both rubbed their eyes and leaned forward, hoping that they were not seeing what they knew they were seeing.

"Is that Jade?" they said in disbelief.

"Yeah, and she's not in tights," Bokuden remarked with a dissatisfied scoff.

Mayah and Raziya gave him a look, but then turned their attention back to Jayden, who was dressed in a tank-top and shorts. She was not a gymnast, they screamed in their minds. And then they found out that they were very, very wrong. And the more amazing thing was that she was actually good, especially at the balance beam. So good, no one felt bad about making fun of her when she was done.

"Great job, mini-monster!" Kim said while hugging Jayden, who was grinning widely since she took first place on the balance beam. She had to work on her uneven bars act, but she managed to come in fourth on that.

"Way to be a geek," Mayah replied with a laugh, patting the younger girl on the shoulder.

"Yeah, that was so lame," Raziya added in, smiling brightly despite her words.

They were about to keep on with the teasing, but Jayden's coach came over to congratulate her. Tara never made it that far because she saw Kim. The blonde could not believe her eyes.

"Kim, what are you doing here?" Tara asked in a slightly excited tone.

"Whoa, Tara, what are you doing here?" Kim countered as they greeted each other with an enthusiastic hug. Shego arched an interested eyebrow as they held each other for a few seconds too long in her opinion.

"I'm the gymnastics coach," Tara explained. "What about you?"

"Jade's my daughter," Kim answered while pointing to the star gymnast.

"I guess that's why she looks so familiar. Hell, she's got your moves. You've got to be proud of her," the blonde woman declared with a grin.

"You know I am," Kim replied.

After some catching up between Tara and Kim, Kim had to leave with her family to go celebrate Jayden's excellent performance; she walked off with a first place award for the uneven bars and her free style performance on the mats. On the way out, Kim did have to explain how she knew Tara, which was from high school and cheerleading.

"One more thing," Shego asked her wife in a low voice so the babbling teens ahead of them could not hear.

"Yes?" Kim inquired.

"You didn't date her, did you?"

"Date Tara? No!" Kim answered with a laugh.

"Okay, just making sure," Shego said with a smile as she put a possessive arm around Kim's waist.

"I did kiss her once, though."

"What!"

Kim laughed. "Kidding, kidding."

"Little scamp," Shego muttered, smiling again. "Now, let's go get our corny little monster something to eat to celebrate her journey into being a nerd!" she said loud enough for Jayden to hear.

Jayden turned around and grinned, apparently proud to be a nerd. She was mostly just happy that she had not embarrassed herself, her family, her teammates, or her coach. Plus, she had a good time. Gymnastics were great.

--------------

Next time: Meet the Evil Eye trio.


	50. Reason Fifty: As seen on TV

I don't own these characters. I also don't own the original premise that this saga was based on. I also don't own the Care Bears. The usual suspects are mine though; those being Todd and Jaylen.

There are two chapters left.

Reason Fifty: As seen on TV

_You just need to know how to handle these guys._

"Oh, god, you're watching this damn Evil Eye show again? What're you planning to be a villain in your spare time?" Jayden inquired in a bit of a frustrated tone as she moved from the floor to lounge on the sofa.

"Oh, please. Just for Kimmie or She-she to catch me five minutes into it? I'd be foiled before I even got a good scheme going," Todd replied, rolling his lime green eyes while he was at it. The siblings were in the living room and he was laid out on the floor. They were sort of watching television; they both knew that they were about to be arguing over the television.

"Then turn from this shit. I wanna watch Mom's show," Jayden stated soundly, as if she expected him to obey her command as soon as she made it.

The elder sibling rolled his eyes again. "You know I hate that show. I'm watching this."

"I hate this show. It's so retarded and their designs suck so badly that even I know they suck," Jayden remarked with a good-natured smile.

"I never said it was a good show," he replied in dry tone.

"Then turn!" she pled, throwing her hands out.

"No, this is on right now and this is what we're watching," Todd replied, motioning to the show.

"Well, I was here first and I wanna watch Mom's show!" Jayden declared.

The brother arched an eyebrow to that one. "If you were here first, we'd be watching what you wanted to watch. Since we're watching what I wanna watch, you must've not been here first," he reasoned.

"Damn you and your logic!" she huffed while holding her arms across her chest. "You know just because Mommy's a bad guy in the show doesn't mean it's a bad show."

"Look, I don't like how they make She-she evil in Kimmie's show, so I'm not watching it, okay?" he countered.

"She doesn't care, so why do you? You should be happy that they put her in the show. She wasn't around when Mom was in high school, after all. Besides, Mommy's one of my favorite character in the show," Jayden commented with a smile. Actually, she liked almost every single character in the show since most of them were based on people that she knew. Her uncle Ron was one of her real favorites, even though she thought that they made him seem downright stupid and goofy sometimes.

"Of course. You might wanna watch this Evil Eye show for when you need them to do your evil lair," the redheaded young man remarked, stirring the conversation away from the reason why he did not like Kim's show. He wished that they had not given his She-she a character in the show if they were going to make her a bad guy. There were a lot of bad people in the world and he was certain that his She-she was not one of them.

"Hey, I'm not going to be a villain! I'm going to be a great hero!" she argued vehemently while slapping her brother with a pillow from the couch. She was going to be just like their mothers, do extraordinary things and save a bunch of people, she mentally insisted. Hell, her brother did it on occasion too, so she was definitely going to do it. There was no way that she was going to be the only one in their family sitting around and doing nothing.

"Yeah, and the start to that would be to live through this evening by leaving me to watch this stupid show," he quipped while snatching the pillow from her. If she kept on going, he was going to turn the pillow on her.

Jayden made a mocking face, but she did not bother her brother about changing the channel anymore. She got up and went to her room to watch their Mom's show while also working on some projects that she had in the works. She personally loved the show, as did many people in her age group. She did wish that the time slot had not been changed because now the show came on with the "Evil Eye for the Bad Guy" show and if her brother beat her to the living room, the latter show would be what they watched. She thought that Evil Eye show was so corny; her friends all agreed. Hell, her brother agreed, but if it was between that show and their Mom's show, Todd always watched the Evil Eye program.

"These guys are so corny," Todd groaned to himself as he watched the show. He was pretty sure that they were color blind too. He did not see how the show stayed on the air.

--------------

"This show is kicking our asses!" one third of the Evil Eye trio complained as he looked over half-a-dozen papers.

Guy was sitting on a couch in their hotel suite and looking over the papers, which were laid out on the mahogany coffee table in front of him. He frowned while looking over everything, getting angrier and angrier with each paper that he opened up. He was getting annoying to the other members of his group because his attitude was getting old to them.

"Calm down. It's only because they changed our time slot. Things'll get better once our usual viewers find the show again," Larson replied while plucking a piece of fruit from a large basket that was on a desk in the corner of the monster-sized room. He bit into his apple, giving him an excuse to not have to engage in a conversation with Guy while he was bugging out for no reason as far as the light brunette was concerned.

"They moved it to a half-hour earlier. I don't think it takes this long to find a show!" Guy objected with a huff while making a violent motion with his hand.

"What show are you even going on about?" Score inquired as he flopped down on the couch to look at the offensive papers. He flipped his hair for no reason other than he had a thing for his hair.

"That stupid kids' show, Meg Nificent. Or whatever the hell it's called," the blonde leader complained gruffly while pushing the papers toward his friend for him to see. He moved them as if they had insulted him personally.

"A kids' show?" the dark brunette echoed in a puzzled voice while taking a look at the papers; it would seem that it was the first he heard that their show was being beaten. He made an interested noise as he looked at the numbers. He then began to read some of the articles. "I don't think it's anything to worry about. It's just a kids' show, after all. It's not like it's stealing our audience or anything," he reasoned, shrugging slightly.

"I don't see how you two can be so nonchalant about this," Guy stated with some fury in his tone, pointing at his cohorts just because his body felt the urge to move while he was upset.

"Because we've only had the same time slot for a couple of weeks and you're acting like we're going to be pulled off of the air because of this. Take a deep breath and relax," Larson replied.

"I don't want to take a deep breath and relax," Guy countered and he began to pace the room. He did not think that his two counterparts were taking things seriously enough. Their show was being demolished by that kids' show since they had both been moved into the same time slot. He did not like how that was working out.

"You're going to wear a path in the carpet at this point if you keep this up," Larson remarked, smiling a bit from amusement.

Guy ignored his friend's smart-mouth comment and continued to pace the length of the room. His friends decided to ignore him, letting him wear their beige carpet thin if that was his wish. At least he was not complaining anymore, they thought.

The pair could not see why he was getting so bent out of shape over a kids' show having slightly better ratings than their show. They were certain that soon enough their ratings would go back to what they used to be and everything would be all right again. It was not like one little kids' show was going to be the end of them.

--------------

"Hey, Princess, you're getting in a bit late," Shego commented as her spouse entered the house. It was a rare day indeed when Kim was the last one home, which was what happened that day. The green-skinned woman was resting on the sofa, having stolen the living room from Todd by making him go handle his schoolwork.

"I know. Sorry I didn't call," Kim apologized as she joined her mate in the living room. She immediately curled into Shego's form while the older female wrapped her arms around the redhead. They embraced each other with fondness that they knew would never be matched.

"You know I was ready to come look for you. The monster and booger were going out of their minds about when you were coming in," Shego reported in a low tone and she was serious. She got very concerned when she saw that she beat Kim home, the redhead did not call, and to make matters worse, when she called Kim, her petite spouse did not answer.

"Really?" Kim asked as if she could not believe it, even though she was not surprised. They were a family of worrywarts when they did not know what someone in the family was doing.

"Yeah, really. They're not used to you being out this late and I didn't know what to think. I mean, you usually call if you're out on a mission or something. What happened to you?" Shego inquired, looking down at the darling woman in her arms.

"I had to go to a meeting about that show since they changed the timeslot. They were worrying about what it might do for the ratings and marketing and all other kinds of things I didn't care about, but they seemed to need me at the meeting for," Kim explained with a sigh. She shook her head a bit too, as if she was weary.

"People really love your show," Shego commented. She was stating a fact from what she could tell.

"Now, if only I didn't have to be in the mess so much, I'd love it too. I guess it's all right since I know Jade loves it and everything. I just wish they didn't keep roping me into these meetings. They don't really need me there," the redheaded hero replied.

"Well, obviously they think otherwise and you should be happy that they want so much of your input. They could just as easily leave you out of it and do a bunch of things that you wouldn't really want your name connected to," the raven-haired woman pointed out.

Kim nodded, conceding that point. Although she did not think it would be a good idea for those guys to try to connect her name to something that she did not agree with considering all of the people that she knew. They seemed like a wise bunch and did try to include her in everything that was going on with the show, which she liked, but sometimes did not have time for. After all, she did have her family, her job, her traveling, the hero thing, and anything that might pop up in between.

"Besides, it's good for you to be a part of their meetings and junk to make sure they don't put something to together that'll poison our mini-monster's mind. Heaven knows we don't need that," Shego remarked, smiling a bit. They did enough of poisoning their daughter's mind, she mentally quipped.

"Yeah, we've poisoned her mind enough, huh?" Kim smiled fondly, saying the exact thought on her mate's mind.

"Exactly." The elder female chuckled a bit and they were quiet for a moment. "Well, since you're home, I'll warm your food up for you while you go take a shower," Shego suggested.

Kim nodded and reluctantly peeled herself from her wife. She went upstairs and greeted the kids, finding them both in their rooms. They both seemed quite happy to see her, easily admitting that they were worried about her because she did not call. She could not help smiling.

"You gotta learn to call, Mom," Jayden pretended to scold her mother. She sounded and looked quite like Shego while doing it.

"Yeah, definitely," Todd chimed in.

"Look who's talking," Kim replied, even though the kids knew to call if they were going to be late. They also knew to call if they were leaving the country in Todd's case or the city in Jayden's case. Yes, the kids were starting to get extremely active, running around more than Go City more often than not.

"I think you should get grounded for being out so late," Todd added in, smiling all the way through just because he was amused by his words.

"Yeah! Hey, Mommy!" Jayden called down to Shego. "You should punish Mom for coming in so late and missing dinner!"

"I will!" Shego replied.

Kim gulped and looked rather nervous. She was not sure if Shego was joking around or not. If she was not joking, Kim wondered exactly what kind of punishment her wife had planned for her. There was always a chance that it would be something that she did not like.

Kim decided to go take her shower and hoped that she was not really in trouble. When she got out and put on some pajamas, she went downstairs to have her dinner. Shego was still down there and they sat down together in the kitchen together. They stared at each other for a few moments, silently taking each other in. And then, Shego surprised Kim by reaching over to take her hand. She intertwined her fingers with Kim's and smiled at her. Kim guessed that her punishment certainly was not going to fit her crime.

"Princess…" Shego started, but she did not really need to say anymore. She was not sure why she was suddenly in such a gushy mood, but she did not mind it.

Kim only smiled, not feeling the need to speak. Her eyes sparkled as she smiled, which Shego noticed. It was that shine that stopped the pale woman from saying anything more. They did not need to speak.

"Our moms are such goofy romantics," Jayden whispered to her brother. They were peeking around the corner at their mothers in the kitchen.

"Hey, it's great that they're still in love with each other after all these years," Todd replied. He was quite glad that Shego and Kim were still together after so much time and he hoped to the heavens that they stayed together forever. He did like that they easily beat out his biological parents, who had gotten a divorce before he broke off all contact with them the moment that he became a legal adult.

"You two stop spying!" Shego called to the siblings. "Or at least do it better," she added quite seriously.

The siblings eeked and practically fell over each other to get away from the kitchen entrance since they had been looking around the corner. They made one of the noisiest getaways as they charged back upstairs to their rooms. Their mothers could not help laughing at them.

"Hard to believe that they want to be adventurers like you," Shego commented, turning her attention back to Kim.

"They just fall to pieces around us," Kim replied with a proud smile on her face. Their kids were better at stealth than they tended to show when Shego was barking at them for whatever reason.

"I know. It's funny," Shego replied with a chuckle. She knew that the kids were better than they proved to be, but it was fun to taunt them just like it was fun to taunt Kim more often than not.

Kim smiled and began to eat her dinner. Shego stayed there with her, keeping her company. When she was done with her meal and put her dishes away, she and Shego retired to their bedroom. They were not going to sleep, but they could relax in their room. If they lounged in the living room, their children took it as a sign that they needed harassing and would ambush them.

"Hey, Kimmie," Shego said as she grabbed a book. She made herself comfortable on their bed while Kim did the same.

"Yes?" Kim practically cooed, happy to have her spouse's attention, even though she was trying to go through some notes. For her, her scientific career was endless research and she made the most of it, finding dozens of ways to use venoms and toxins while studying all sorts of cold-blooded creatures.

"You're cute," Shego said out of the blue it seemed, which earned her a quick kiss.

Kim liked little compliments from her spouse, just like Shego loved compliments from her. The difference between the two was that Kim openly showed her delight all of the time, so Shego easily knew what to say to Kim. The redhead seemed to know instinctively what to say to her wife to lift Shego's spirits. Either way, it worked out for both of them.

"Very, very cute," the green-skinned woman said, which earned her a longer, deeper kiss. She wrapped her arms around Kim and pulled the redhead to her.

The redhead ended up straddling her mate's waist. Shego's hands roamed Kim's body while they continued on kissing. Kim moaned into Shego's mouth. The sound made Shego smirk internally.

Kim was able to forget about her show and the annoying meeting that she had attended a couple hours of being home. It was not that she disliked having a show based on her life or even being involved in it, but sometimes, she did not see why she needed to be present at many of the meetings. But, that was out of the way and she could get back to her normal life.

----(New day)

"Look, Smiles, I don't want to have to kill you, but I damn sure will if you don't change the channel!" Jayden demanded, standing in her fighting stance on one side of the living room.

"I was here first," Todd replied firmly, standing in his own defensive posture at the opposite end of the room.

"I'll make sure you're here last too by knocking your ass out for the night," Jayden declared quite seriously.

"You try it and our moms'll find you flat on your ass in this living room," the brother countered with a half-smirk on her face.

Jayden snorted, huffing like a mad bull. Her arms tensed and she seemed ready to attack. She seriously wanted the television now, but as usual Todd was not giving it up. She hated that he was always in before her despite the fact that he had afternoon classes. She just got caught up running around with her friends or with gymnastics practice, which were the main reasons why she never got to the living room television before him.

"Go watch it in your room," Todd told her, nodding in the direction of the stairs.

"Fuck that!" Jayden replied heatedly with a deep frown on her face.

"What's wrong with your room? Too many Care Bears glaring down at you?" he teased her. At fourteen years old, Jayden was still just as much into Care Bears as she had been when she was four.

"To hell with you," Jayden stated in a snippy tone.

"Words like that damn sure won't get you this remote," the redhead informed her. He had the remote in his back pocket. If she wanted it, she was more than likely literally going to have to kick his ass.

"Gimme the fucking remote!" Jayden ordered in a furious tone, sounding very much like her Mommy when she was angered.

"Go watch it in your room," he said again.

"No!"

Jayden wanted to watch their Mom's show; it was a new episode coming on. She was not interested in watching it in her room because the living room television was the best one in the house. It was the biggest television, the picture quality was just better, and there was total surround sound. But, as usual, her brother was watching that stupid Evil Eye show. She was going to beat him to death with the television if he kept watching a show that he agreed was stupid.

"Hey, I know you're in there arguing!" Shego shouted as she entered the house, home from work. She could hear the siblings outside, barking about the television.

"Mommy, tell Smiley to stop being a prick!" the raven-haired teen whined.

"Booger being a prick? I don't believe it," Shego said sarcastically as she went into the living room to hopefully settle matters. "Where's Kimmie?" she asked while looking around. Usually Kim would be around to prevent her from having to knock their kids out considering the fact they were in fighting stances, like they were ready to seriously go at it. Shego was not in favor of such actions between their kids.

"She's in South America," Todd answered. "Said she'd be home at like ten."

"Now, what's going on?" Shego inquired with an interested face. "And both of you stop standing like that," she added in a firm tone. The pair sighed, but relaxed their stances a bit.

"I wanna watch Mom's show! It's a new episode and this ass-goblin won't lemme!" Jayden answered while pointing at her big brother with a frown etched on her round features.

"Did you just call me an 'ass-goblin'?" Todd asked in disbelief. She certainly was not making him anymore inclined to turn to her show with those kinds of insults flying.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I should've called you an ass-booger!" Jayden proclaimed with a sneer. "You ass-booger."

"Jade, don't call your brother an ass-booger," Shego said, although she silently admitted that was a good one. She was going to have to remember to use it on her brothers one day.

"She-she, I was here first and she's got a TV in her room," Todd pointed out.

"Mommy, he's watching a show he doesn't even like! He's doing it just to spite me!" Jayden argued.

"I was here first. I should get to watch what I want to watch since I was here first," Todd countered.

"But, it's new and I just wanna watch it out here!" Jayden whined, making two tight fists and shaking them back and forth for a few moments.

"Smiles, why can't you just let your sister watch her show? I know you don't like this Evil Eye bullshit," Shego pointed out, motioning to the television with a sweep of her hand. The funny thing was, Shego actually used to like the Evil Eye show, back when it first came out a few seasons ago.

"But, She-she, I was here first," Todd argued, scrunching up his face from his disappointment in their mother's suggestion.

"Fine, you were here first. Jade, go watch it in your room," Shego said, pointing upstairs.

Their mother's words shocked the siblings, neither expecting things to be so easy. Jayden's face fell, looking absolutely destroyed; an onlooker might have assumed her mother kicked her ailing puppy from her expression. Shego walked off while Jayden's face just got worse, like she was going to burst into heavy tears any second. Todd looked at his little sister and started feeling quite like the ass-booger that she accused him of being.

"Um…mini-monster…" Todd muttered while looking down at his rather big feet. He was quite ashamed of his behavior and that was why he could not look his sister in the face. He reached into his back pocket and grabbed the television remote. "Here ya go…" he offered her the device.

Jayden looked up just in time to catch the remote. She could not believe it and stared at her brother in shock. He just shrugged; he needed to act like the adult, he told himself rather than arguing with Jayden like they were both little kids. Jayden grinned.

"Thanks, weird brother!" she practically cheered and she actually hugged him for his actions.

Todd laughed a bit as he returned the embrace. He supposed that much of the time he took for granted just how much Jayden admired Kim and liked her television show. Jayden grinned widely as she threw herself into her seat to watch the show and Todd walked off because he still did not like program.

"She-she, you knew that would work, wouldn't you?" Todd asked Shego, who was in the kitchen.

"Knew what would work?" Shego inquired in a confused tone as she began pulling things out of the refrigerator for what she wanted to make for dinner. She was going to put the food on and then take her shower.

Todd just shook his head, knowing that Shego would never tell him what he wanted to know. He did believe that she had just set up what happened in the living room, knowing that her walking away would shatter Jayden and compel him to give into the girl. He did not resent it if that was the case. He was glad for it because he got to see some joy on his sister's face.

Jayden was quite content to watch the show quietly; it was probably the only thing that she did quietly. She always watched the show alone, even though her friends loved the program just as much as she did. It was just that they all had the bad habit of getting excited and loud with each other and they did not want to miss anything by having the others there as a distraction. She also did not like watching with her Mom or her Mommy because they would talk through the show too and they could be very cynical, especially of their own characters. Jayden did not want to hear any of it.

Once the show was over, she got on the phone to talk about it with her friends. She ate dinner while she was on the phone, which did not get her scolded. Shego knew that one day out of the week, Jayden needed to be on the phone talking about that show no matter what. As long as she ate her food, Shego allowed it for that one night.

----(New day)

"I don't believe this shit! This show is kicking our asses!" Guy screamed as he practically kicked the door open to the Evil Eye trio's hotel suite.

"Okay, you might have a point," Larson conceded as he and Score entered behind the furious male. They had been trying their best to convince themselves that the "kids' show" that they were up against in their new timeslot would take a backseat to them, but that did not seem to be the case.

"This is bullshit," Guy huffed in anger as he began his now habit of pacing the length of their room.

"At this rate…" Score stopped himself from finishing that thought. He did not even want to put such a horrible thing into the air.

Guy and Larson looked at Score, who just shook his head. They knew what was going to come out of his mouth. He was going to say that they were going to get cancelled at the rate they were going and he was probably right. Their show was being overwhelmed by that supposedly kiddie show "Meg Nificent." From what the numbers showed, they actually had less viewers now than when the show had first been moved into the new timeslot.

"We've got to do something before we're finished!" Larson said in a panic now that he realized they might get cancelled.

"Okay, we've got to think of something really big," Guy agreed with the light brunette.

"But, what?" Score inquired.

"I just said we've got to think of something. So, think of something!" the blonde demanded from his cohorts.

The trio was silent for a while. Guy continued to pace, feeling it helped him think. Larson sat down to have some fruit while trying to form some kind of an idea. Score settled down onto their comfortable sofa. They all could not help thinking about how all that surrounded them, all the luxury and comfort around, would be gone if they allowed their show to be cancelled. They needed to fight that beast of a kiddie show.

"Well, I think the first thing we should do is get to know our enemy," Larson suggested as he finished off an apple.

"What do you mean?" Score asked curiously with a puzzled expression on his face.

"We should watch the show and see what it's all about," Larson explained.

"Sounds like an idea," Guy agreed with a nod.

The trio got copies of every season of Meg Nificent, which they found out was entering its fifth season. It had a leg up on their four seasons, which might have explained why it was topping them in ratings, they considered. They then watched what they were up against with incredulous expressions.

"This is what's beating us? A cheerleading hero with an idiot sidekick who teams up with a ninja, a kid in a wheelchair, and a girl that works at a clothing store?" Guy asked in disbelief.

"Since when do cheerleaders even know karate?" Score inquired, still looking utterly perplexed. He could not see how the show was making it anywhere.

"This show is pure garbage!" Larson huffed in anger, his glasses moving a bit off of his nose as he jerked his head. Now, he was upset that they were being beaten by such a show. They liked to think that their fashion tips to wannabe bad boys were way better than some cheerleader saving the world with and from a wide range of misfits from what they could tell.

"I refuse to let this thing kill us!" Guy declared.

The trio actually watched all five seasons, which took a couple of days. They noticed that the show had a little bit of everything—action, adventure, humor, romance, drama, and even some very serious moments to give morals without shoving it in the viewers faces. There was a lot more variety in the show than theirs provided, but they still liked to believe that their show was better. They just had to figure out how to snatch viewers from "the kiddie show" to their show.

"We need to know more about this show. Who is it aimed at and things like that," Larson decided. He could not believe that it was just a kiddie show after watching every season, but it did seem to be for children too.

Guy nodded in agreement once again. The trio then set about their task to find out more about the show. It was through that research that they found out the show was based on a real person, an active herpetologist named Kim Possible-Gooding. They could not believe it when they saw a picture of her. It only upset them more to see who the woman was that was beating their show.

To them, Kim looked like a little choir girl. After some digging, they did find out that was far from the truth. She was married to a woman and had been for many years. They decided to take a look at her wife and found something amazing, Shego had been in a television show once. They decided to look into that and discovered Shego's cousin used to have a daredevil show that Shego had been involved in for one special episode. They noticed that the ratings for that one show was the best of them all whenever it was replayed.

"Hmm…" Guy started up, putting his index finger to his cheek to show that he was thinking.

"You're thinking something bad, aren't you?" Larson inquired with a smart-aleck, half-smirk on his face.

"What if we did a show with these two in it?" the blonde proposed, finger still at the side of his face.

"Do you think they would go for that?" Score asked with a perplexed face.

"We won't give them a chance to say no," Guy replied, a suspicious looking smile gracing his face.

It took Score a second to get the gist of that. "Wait, but is that illegal?" he asked in a bit of a worried tone.

"Calm down, Score. We're not going to hurt them or anything. We're just going to try to get them to go along with us and if they don't, we'll hold onto them for a second to give them a makeover," Guy explained his idea.

Larson scoffed. "They need it to. I mean, what was that cat-suit? And those colors?" He rolled his eyes in disgust with a mocking scoff escaping his lips.

"Exactly. And we'll just explain it's publicity stunt if there's trouble," Guy offered up with a crooked smile.

Larson nodded, agreeing with the plan it would seem. Score looked back and forth between his two cohorts. He sighed and nodded right with the other brunette. It would seem that they had the makings of a scheme. It was time to get it seriously planned out.

--------------

Next time: the end.


	51. Reason Fiftyone: Don’t try this at home

I don't own these characters. I also don't own the original premise behind this saga. I do own Todd, Jayden, Mayah, Bokuden, Raziya, Aztek, Romah, Nobunaga, and Chyna.

Warning: one chapter left.

Reason Fifty-one: Don't try this at home

_Ass-kickings all around._

Shego was going out to her car from work. She had gotten a call from Jayden's school. The call was about more than Jayden as usual, but Shego had lost the coin toss with Betty on who was going to go. She wished that Kim could go, but the scientist was out of the city at the moment and was not going to be back for another hour or so. So, she was stuck with the task of going to the school to find out what the crew blew up or who they insulted or who they threatened. She never made it that far.

"Excuse me, can you help me find an address?" a man asked Shego as she went to her car. He was obviously wearing a wig, which was cocked to the side in a funny way. He had a pair of sunglasses too.

"I don't have time for it," Shego dismissed him rudely and quickly noticed someone coming up from her other side. She turned because she did not like the way the person was approaching her.

It turned out that Shego's paranoia was well-placed, but in the wrong direction. As she turned to face the man coming up on her, the guy asking for directions pulled out a small spray can and hit her with a knock-out gas. She passed out instantly, falling into his arms.

The two men then hustled Shego into their car and were gone within a minute. Surprisingly enough, it also happened right in Shego's work parking lot, which was also supposed to be monitored by cameras. The guys manning the cameras just were not as alert as they needed to be that day; after all, who would ever suspect that someone might be able to kidnap Shego, the most physically powerful agent of their organization?

"That was easy," Score commented, speaking to Larson as they drove off with an unconscious Shego in the back seat. Larson took off the sunglasses and put on his usual eye wear; thankfully he was not the one driving since he was close to blind without his prescription glasses on.

"Much easier than I expected," Larson admitted as he stripped off his messed up wig. He had done some research on Shego and he seriously did not think it would be so easy to get her, but then again, he did like to think his ambush idea was the best way to approach her. It would seem that he was correct in that thinking.

"Yeah," Score agreed with a smile. He hoped that the ease of the first part of the operation was a good omen. Perhaps their whole mission would turn out just as easy and they would avoid the fate of being cancelled, which seemed more and more certain as time went on.

--------------

Kim was on her way home. She was leaving the Go University campus, coming out of the science building when a raven-haired man approached her from the left. He had a baseball cap on with sunglasses. She tensed, not getting a good vibe from him before he even made it to her. She stopped walking to see if maybe he would go by her into the building or if he was truly coming at her. She tensed even more when he stepped to her.

"Kim Possible?" he asked, sounding almost amused, which only bothered her more.

"Who wants to know?" she countered in a guarded tone.

"An interested party. Would you mind coming with me?" he proposed, motioning to himself with a graceful sweep of his hand, as if he was some kind of gentleman.

"As if. Who the hell are you and what the hell do you want?" she demanded to know in a powerful voice. She was now extra-guarded, muscles tense and ready to act. If he twitched in a manner that she did not like, she was going to lay him out right in front of the building that she worked in.

"Calm down," he urged her in a calm tone, putting his hands up as a sign of harmlessness.

"Who the hell are you?" she inquired once more, still not relaxing in the slightest. She did not like the vibes that he was giving off and she was not going to be all right until he was out of sight for her.

"I'm the man that has your wife," he replied smoothly.

"What the fuck!" Kim said, throwing her hands up now with the full intent of kicking his ass. She did not care if he was just joking because even if he was, a cruel prank like that deserved an ass-kicking.

"Shh! Let's be quiet and calm about this," he told her while slowly going into his pants' pocket. He pulled out a cell phone and showed Kim a picture on it.

Kim frowned deeply as she looked down at the picture. Her wife was unconscious and in the backseat of a car from what she could tell. The phone was flipped shut before she got a chance to take in any details. She just hoped that Shego was alive.

"Is she all right?" Kim demanded to know in a low tone to avoid attracting attention to them. She did not want anything to happen to her spouse after all. Her olive eyes were ablaze with righteous indignation, but she was going to control herself.

"She's fine," he assured her, having the nerve to smile at her while speaking.

"Are you sure?" Kim inquired with deep concern. Her wife had a different chemical makeup than the rest of the human population, so whatever they used to knock her out could be harming her without them even knowing it.

"You come with me nice and quiet and I'll let you find out," he informed her, still smiling, looking rather demonic to the redheaded hero.

Kim did not put up an argument, merely nodding her consent. They walked off with him and a few people that were coming toward the building could tell that she appeared slightly uneasy. A young man approached the departing duo.

"Hey, prof, you okay?" the young man asked Kim.

"Yeah, fine," Kim lied with her usual bright smile and continued walking. She hoped no more of her students approached because she wanted to hurry up to the place that her mate was. At least she did not have to teach her class that day, so that made her running to her students less likely than if the situation happened at another time.

The pair did hurry to the man's car with him behind the wheel and her in the passenger seat. He seemed to trust that she would cooperate because he did have the love of her life. As they settled in the vehicle, Kim watched him pull off his hat, a wig, and take off his sunglasses. Kim recognized him then.

"You're that guy from that Evil Eye show," the redhead gasped. She knew him because Todd watched the show.

"You watch our show?" Guy asked in shock.

Kim was about to casually answer that her son did, but like hell she would let a man that probably kidnapped her spouse know that she had a son. Instead, she changed the subject to something more important and relevant.

"Get me to my wife," Kim ordered in a rather harsh tone. One would have thought that she was in charge from the way that she sounded.

The blonde male sucked his teeth and muttered what sounded suspiciously like "bitch" under his breath. Kim could care less about what he said as long as he took her to Shego. She silently prayed that nothing happened to Shego as a result of these idiots kidnapping Shego for whatever reason.

"So, what's the plan here?" Kim inquired heatedly as they proceeded onward. She wondered what a part of the Evil Eye trio wanted with her and her mate.

"You'll see when we get there," Guy answered cryptically, not reacting to her tone. Kim merely frowned deeply.

--------------

"Has anybody seen Shego?" Betty inquired in a puzzled tone as she exited her office. She looked a bit perplexed; her brow wrinkled from her eyebrows being curled up.

"Didn't she run off to pick up your kids?" Will countered as he was walking by.

"She did, but that was well over an hour ago and the school called again because Shego hasn't shown up yet," Betty explained.

"Well, you know sometimes Shego can be erratic. Have you tried calling her?" Will proposed.

"I guess I will now," the one-eyed woman conceded.

Betty went back to her office and picked up her phone. She called Shego's cell phone, but she did not get an answer. She decided to call Shego's house, just in case. There was no answer there either. As a last ditch effort, she called Kim.

"What's the sitch?" Kim answered; Guy had given her permission to take the call, but warned that any "funny business" would be bad for her spouse.

"Where the hell is your wife?" Betty demanded to know.

Kim was silent for a moment. She wanted to say something that would let Betty know something was wrong, but that would not let Guy know that some big guns would be after him as soon as Betty realized that Shego was a prisoner. She decided to go with something that Betty would know was a lie point blank.

"She's at home. She's not feeling too good. I'm going to go buy her some soup," Kim answered in a normal voice.

"Sick?" Betty echoed incredulously.

"Yeah, sick," Kim insisted.

"Oh, okay. Well, tell her to call in the next time she's not feeling good," Betty replied, sounding normal now too.

"I will. Bye, Betty."

"Bye."

The one-eyed woman hung up the phone, quite assured that something was wrong. First of all, Shego never got sick over an afternoon; hell, it was quite rare for Shego to be sick. And if Shego was sick, Kim never would say that she was going to the store to buy Shego some soup as both women made homemade soup. And then of course, Kim never called Betty by her first name, just like Betty never called Kim by her first name. So, something was definitely wrong.

"Okay, who the hell was the last person here to see Shego?" Betty demanded to know as she stepped out of her office.

Everyone around had about the same timeline as Betty in regards to when they last saw Shego. Betty decided find out if Shego even made it to her car. She trotted out of the building into the employee parking lot and saw Shego's black sedan in its usual place. Shego apparently never made it to her car.

"Damn it, what the fuck is going on?" Betty asked the air in a confused voice as she marched off back into the building and went right to the security center.

"Ma'am!" the two guards that manned the station stood at attention as Betty entered the room.

"You two, what the hell have you been doing all day?" she demanded to know in a furious roar.

"Ma'am?" they repeated with puzzled expressions.

"Play me the parking lot footage from about an hour and a half ago," Betty commanded in a hard tone while pulling up a chair. The guards did as ordered and Betty watched the film. Ten minutes from where she started, Betty saw exactly what happened to Shego. "Holy shit. What the fuck were you two doing while this was going on!" she inquired, speaking to the guards while pointing at the footage of Shego being kidnapped.

The pair were at a loss for words, not sure how to explain that they had been playing blackjack at the time. Betty did not sit around to hear their excuses anyway. She went to mobilize her people to get every available agent on tracking down Shego. She was glad that Kim had been so odd over the phone. As soon as that thought hit her, Betty was struck by another thought.

"Kim must've known. And since she was talking so weird does that mean she's in trouble too?" Betty wondered aloud, but she easily calmed herself down before letting that thought pattern take hold. "Okay, Princess can take care of herself. The main thing is finding Shego since it's clear that she's been kidnapped and drugged. Who knows what they want her for, after all."

Once Betty focused herself, she had everyone searching for Shego. It was a pretty high-tech operation, as Betty spared no expensive when it came to her agency; besides, having the latest technology helped them do their job to the best of their ability. It was something that people thoroughly appreciated. To find Shego, they decided to just key into her abnormal body temperature, using a helicopter to go over the city. They could only hope that she was still in the city.

--------------

Had Kim been in her right frame of mind, she would have noticed that the Evil Eye trio was no better at picking hideouts than most bad guys. Guy brought Kim to an empty studio and the redhead immediately noticed her spouse, who was tied to a chair. Shego did not look to good.

"Shego!" Kim cried with distress as she dashed over to her wife, not even noticing Larson and Score standing around by a makeup table. She fell to Shego's side, concern and worry etched deeply onto her round face.

"Princess…" Shego droned out in a weak voice.

"Shego, are you all right?" Kim inquired, appearing ready to burst into tears.

"Fine…" the green-skinned woman groaned.

"Are you sure? They didn't hurt you or anything?" the petite hero begged to know.

"No…" Shego answered slowly. She was coherent enough to understand her lover and respond properly, but whatever they hit her with made her feel like holding her head up would be enough to knock her out. She was pretty sure that she could lose a fist fight to a newborn baby right now.

"What did you idiots do to her!" Kim demanded to know, facing the trio in a guarded stance. Her eyes screamed bloody murder and if looks could kill, her face would have been more than enough to slay them a hundred times over. It seemed like she was ready to throw down, which she was. She was more than prepared to destroy them, but only after she found out what they did to her spouse.

"Calm down," Larson urged her while approaching the fiery redhead.

"Stay where the fuck you are!" Kim commanded him in a tone that seemed to shut his whole body off and he did remain in place. "Now, what the hell do you want from us? And what the hell did you do to Shego? If you hurt her, I swear you won't make it out of here in enough pieces for them to have something to bury!"

"Relax, Possible," Guy ordered in a calm tone. "Shego's just here to make sure you cooperate with our little plan," he informed her casually.

"Which is?" she inquired, a glare in her eyes and hate in her tone.

"We're going to give you both makeovers!" Guy declared merrily, clapping his hands together and smiling. His friends had the nerve to strike a pose for a few seconds.

Kim had been expecting a lot of answers, but that was not one of them. That one was so ridiculous that she did not even have a witty remark for it. Shego was just as incredulous as her mate and wished to the heavens that she could get her mouth to work as fast as her brain to tell how fucking retarded that reason was to kidnap and drug a soon-to-be federal agent.

"You're a special of ours," Larson added, sounding almost bubbly. He was smiling too, appearing almost giddy over things.

"Don't tell me this is for ratings for your show," Kim said in disbelief.

"Exactly. You're going to give us the ratings boost we need to stay on the air," Guy stated firmly while rubbing his hands together.

"And what's to stop me for beating you three up and just freeing Shego to leave?" the petite hero inquired with an arched eyebrow.

"The fact that we probably poisoned Shego and only one of us knows where the antidote is and another knows what time it has to be given to her," Guy answered rather smugly.

Kim did not waste any time in calling his bluff on that one. "You're lying," she stated plainly. Her love was trying to nod in agreement with that one and was trying her best to say the word "bullshit."

"Or so you hope," Guy said with a devious smile.

"You guys do makeovers. You're not criminal masterminds. So, just untie Shego and I won't break your arms and legs for making a mockery of the both of us," Kim assured the trio. She was rather insulted that these clowns were able to capture her beloved and reduce Shego to a drugged out doll. Breaking their arms and legs for that offense alone seemed too light for the redhead actually.

"Are you really willing to chance that we haven't done something to your wife?" Guy inquired with a curious look on his face.

"Just let us work our magic and then you can go home with your wife," Larson told Kim with a bit of a smirk on his face.

The redhead really was tempted to just do like they said right off the bat. She did not want to risk Shego's health or life and it was just a makeover. After all, what if they were telling the truth? She had seen people flip over less than the ratings of a television show. So, it was possible that they had gone out of their little minds, poisoned Shego, and she just could not risk that.

"Fine," Kim sighed while taking the nearest seat.

"Damn it…" Shego muttered while trying to move. She was not going to sit back and be a liability to her wife, but she really could not move a muscle. They could have tied her up with cooked spaghetti and she would not have been able to make her way out of it. Whatever they hit her with was not reacting well with her system and she was sure that was an accident on their part, not some ingenious form of villainy.

The trio got started, getting several cameras to film what they were about to do. They got lights to make sure that the lighting was good to set off their creation when they were done. They then got their make up and racks of clothing. Kim rolled her eyes, which was noticed.

"Don't act like you're better than we are. This show'll let everyone know we're better than you!" Guy proclaimed quite confidently and his two cohorts agreed with that wholeheartedly.

The trio was now upset with Kim mocking them and took the time to tie her up to make sure no funny stuff happened. They then began going through the things that they had brought to get their task underway. They did not make it far as a security system that they set off began going off.

"We have company," Larson practically sang the obvious.

"Don't worry, we've got insurance too," Guy reminded his friend.

--------------

Betty and her organization had the place surrounded. They could only wonder why someone would kidnap Shego and then take her to an abandoned studio. They were going to setting up to quietly storm the area, which was something that they were getting quite good at since they had get into entire the lairs of mad scientists and other insane scum. Unfortunately, someone tripped an alarm and a bunch of corridors were suddenly sealed with laser eyes.

"Damn it. God, can you send one squad full of competent agents?" Betty asked the ceiling with a sigh.

The one-eyed leader did not have much time to lament the fact that it seemed like she was always surrounded by idiots. A television screen came out of the wall and they all got a chance to see Guy in front of the camera. Betty recognized Kim in the background, even though she was off in a corner and pretty far away.

"Ladies and gentleman, we have for you an Evil Eye special!" Guy announced with a near-grin on his face and then the camera panned over to Kim, Larson, and Score.

"Today we're going to fix up Kim Possible, the person that the hit show Meg Nificent is based off of. And trust us, folks, she needs it," Larson said while forcing Kim to look up by grabbing her chin.

"And to insure that we make it through this task, we're going to have to ask that the Justice Bureau to back off or this could get messy," Guy commented as the picture returned to him. He was standing by Shego, who was in front of a table now. There was something on the table that was covered with a sheet, which the blonde male pulled away.

"Oh, come on! You're not going to blow yourselves up!" Kim shouted when she saw what was under the cover. It happened to be a bomb the size of a microwave. Now, she might think that they poisoned Shego, but she damn sure knew that they were not going to detonate that bomb while they were in the building.

"Try us!" Guy dared anyone looking to halt their program.

"Drama queens…" Shego muttered, still dazed thanks to the drug that they used on her.

"So, everyone, sit back and enjoy the show!" Larson said with a grin and the trio then got to work.

"This has got to be a joke," Betty muttered while shaking her head. Shego had been kidnapped by a makeup crew.

"What do we do, sir?" Will inquired, speaking to the boss.

"We're going to standby until we can get by the security lockdown and one of our bomb specialist get here now," Betty answered while pulling out her sleek walkie-talkie to get some backup.

--------------

"What the hell is that?" Aztek inquired out of the blue as he stopped what he was doing, namely going long. He was then hit in the head with a football, but since his head did not move, it did not seem that he noticed.

"What the hell, man! I put you on my team to run, you dirt bomb!" Jayden complained loudly, speaking to Aztek, who was holding his title of dirt bomb rather well. He was quite filthy to the point where they were all amazed that there was still dirt to play on considering how much he was covered in.

The kids were all out in the park, playing football in a big open grass patch. It was a nice day and they were all happy to be out. They enjoyed running around and their parents appreciated clean homes.

"You see that?" Aztek asked while pointing across the street.

Jayden looked where Aztek was pointing before deciding to go pummel that little snot for possibly costing them a touchdown. After all, he was open and starting to prove that he was the fastest sprinter among them, so no one would have caught him after he caught the ball. She saw what he was talking and that caused her to crane an eyebrow.

"Weird brother," Jayden called Todd in a slightly confused tone.

"Yeah?" Todd replied while going to pick up the football. He was quarterbacking for one team while Jayden was the quarterback for the other.

"What the hell is that?" Jayden asked while pointing where Aztek had been pointing.

Todd turned his head to look. "What the fuck? Timeout!"

The eldest of the group trotted off while the others looked up to know why he was calling timeout. They all turned saw what he was talking about and they were shocked. Everyone followed behind Todd across the street to the front of an electronics store, which had a large television in the window. They could not believe their eyes.

"What the hell is this mess?" Mayah inquired in confusion as they all watched the Evil Eye trio work on Kim.

"Mayah, you've got your scanner?" Jayden asked curiously.

"Way ahead of you," Mayah answered as she pulled out a device the size of a cell phone. She hit a button and they all listened intently, hearing Betty over the device. Mayah and Raziya had fashioned the little scanner not too long ago because Mayah was rather nosy when it came to her mother's work, which was one of the uses of her scanner. The scanner also doubled as her cell phone and a mini-computer.

They all listened as Betty barked over the scanner, looking to get a bomb squad there as soon as possible. She also huffed about getting passed the security system without alerting the trio, thus endangering Kim and Shego. The kids all looked up at each other and smiled.

"No, no, no. I know that look. We're not doing that!" Todd stated firmly, practically reading all of the youngsters minds.

"Of course, we are, weird brother. You're a semi-hero and we'd like to start. Rescuing our mothers would be the best. We can't let these losers do this to us! It makes our family look bad," Jayden declared.

"Professionals are on the case. Aunt Betty is looking into it," Todd pointed out.

"Yeah, but Mommy is caught up with needing stuff and they know she's there. We could get the drop on 'em using the Justice Bureau as a distraction without them even knowing it," Mayah suggested with a sly smile.

"Brilliant! Okay, guys, go get your equipment and meet back at the house in ten minutes!" Jayden stated.

"Cool!" Nobunaga said with a grin while charging off to go get his ninja gear at home.

"No, wait for me!" Bokuden called after his little brother as he ran off after the smaller blonde boy.

"Come on, Chyna, we're going to be like Mommy today," Mayah informed her little sister as she grabbed the smaller girl to make a hasty getaway.

"Wait for us!" Aztek complained as he and Romah ran off with their sisters.

"Guys! No, this isn't a game!" Todd shouted to the kids, who were all already out of sight. Oh, god, their parents were going to kill him, he thought with a fright!

"C'mon, bro. We don't want to be the ones that hold up the show," Jayden said with a devilish smile as she trotted off. Todd groaned, but followed behind her, knowing that there was no way to talk any of the kids out of things. He could hope that the situation was resolved before they made it up there.

--------------

"Could this take any longer?" Betty groaned, even though she had not been waiting for things for more than ten minutes. It was ten minutes too long since she did not know what that crazy trio might do to her best friend and her best friend's brat. The bomb thing was not too promising either considering that they might be willing to blow everyone sky high to avoid arrest.

"We're getting the specs to the security system and things now, sir," Will informed the impatient leader.

Betty sighed and waved her cousin off, just to let him know that she heard him. She silently admitted that they took the operation a bit too lightly, which was her fault. She did not think that they would have to do much, figuring that Shego would wake up and take care of things on her end sooner or later. But, from what she saw of Shego on the television, the pale woman was out of it; the Evil Eye trio flashed over to Shego every now and then, declaring that she would be their next masterpiece. Things still had all the elements of a bad joke to Betty and her organization because the Evil Eye trio were doing all of the crap that they were to give Kim and Shego makeovers to boost the ratings of their show. It was seriously ridiculous, Betty thought.

--------------

"Everybody in position?" Jayden's voice inquired over a communication ear piece.

"Yeah," most voices answered.

"Hold on," Aztek responded.

"What the fuck do you mean 'hold on'? Why the fuck aren't you in position?" Jayden demanded to know.

"The snot-nosed bastard probably saw a funny cloud and decided to chase it," Raziya remarked snidely.

"Goddamn, Az, if you let your fucked up attention span fuck this up, I'm going to fuck you up later on," Jayden promised in a dead serious tone.

"That was too many fucks for her to be lying," Bokuden commented.

"All right, all right, I'm in position," Aztek informed everyone.

"Seriously, Az, don't fuck this up. This is my moms' asses on the line here," Jayden said.

"Are you guys ready to rock or what?" Raziya inquired impatiently. They were playing around too much in her opinion.

"Yeah, we're all in position now, right?" Jayden asked in a very impatient tone that let the crew know that if anyone gave the wrong answer there would be hell to pay.

"Yeah," came all confirmations.

"Razi, you ready?" Jayden inquired.

"O.C.I.M.R," Raziya answered. It translated to "of course I am ready," but one person among them did not know that.

"Will you speak fucking English while we do this?" Aztek asked with a huff. Why the hell did she have to abbreviate everything? Did it take too much time to speak a full word?

"Damn it, she just said she's ready," Mayah answered in an annoyed tone. She was going to strangle that boy when it was all said and done, if Jayden or Raziya did not beat her to it, of course.

"All right, guys, are we ready to do this or are we going to hold a high-tech argument while you're all cramped in air ducts while I'm trapped on the roof?" Raziya asked.

"Can we get going before I find out I'm stuck?" Todd requested with a sigh. He could not believe that he was on a mission where the rescue plan was thought up by his fourteen-year-old little sister. But then again, he could not let the little maniacs go out on their own, which he knew they would have done.

"Oh, that would be a problem," Mayah muttered.

"Okay, guys, I'm going to cut the power for a quick second to get around the security system and you can get in there. From what me and Mayah could tell, the system can't be shut down for more than a minute. So, you guys have a minute to get in there without a problem or find a way to dodge lasers," Raziya informed the group.

"Just give the word," Jayden said.

Raziya was silent for a moment. She was propped up on the roof a building right next to the studio with a laptop computer in her arms. She typed for a second and then hit one last key. She gave her crew the signal.

"You've got a clear minute," Raziya told them. Or she hoped that they had a clear minute. She and Mayah had not had enough time to truly study the system and know the best way to work around it.

--------------

Everyone watched as the lights flickered on and off in the building. The lights went out, leaving the Justice Bureau squad and the Evil Eye trio quite puzzled. In less than a minute, the lights did come back on. A few haunting yowls from some air ducts could be heard.

"What the hell was that?" Guy wondered aloud while looking up at the ceiling for a moment.

"Those screams of pain sounded mighty familiar," Betty commented with a frown on her face. Those screams better not be who she thought it was.

"Please, don't be who it sounded like. Please, don't be who it sounded like," Kim silently prayed.

"Goddamn it that hurts!" Jayden hollered as she dropped down from the ceiling. Her hair was smoking.

"What the hell is going on?" Larson inquired in a perplexed tone with an expression to match as more people dropped down.

A suspicious puff of smoke appeared near the bomb, covering it and Shego. The Evil Eye trio wondered what was going on considering the room was filling with brats. Brats that were sporting some pretty smart burns through their clothing.

"A minute my ass!" all four Director-Jones children complained as they picked themselves up to stand in a defensive mode.

"Um…Smiles?" Jayden called because he was supposed to land next to her.

"I'll be down in a moment!" Todd informed them. He was stuck thanks to his shoulders. It would seem that their rushed planning failed to get the measurements of the air duct right and he was trapped for the moment.

"What the hell is going on?" Guy demanded to know in a bark while looking around at all of their unwanted guests.

"Get 'em!" Jayden ordered her crew, which consisted of the Director-Jones siblings and Nobunaga. Bokuden was doing something else.

"Now for the fun part!" Nobunaga cheered as he dashed toward Lance from where the smoke had appeared. He pulled a black-colored bokken from his back, ready to bash Guy's face in.

"Guards!" the blonde bad guy cried out from the shock of seeing a boy running at him with the intent to hurt him with a wooden sword.

Before the group could make it to the Evil Eye trio, a swarm of large henchmen rushed out from the shadows. Nobunaga merely cheered as more targets came into the area and he wasted no time showing everyone just how impressive he was when it came to his arts. His friends did the same.

"Kids, what the hell are you doing here?" Kim demanded to know.

"Mom, we're rescuing you, doy!" Jayden answered while showing off her new and improved clawed gloves to her opponents. She had finally gotten them down to be sleek, stylish weapons that fit her like a second-skin.

"And where did you get that outfit?" the redhead inquired.

"Um…" Jayden was wearing her Mom's old mission clothes, which she taken out of her Mom's closet. They were fairly baggy on her since she was only fourteen, but that did not bother her because she liked her outfits baggy. "Never mind that! Let's get you out of here!" she replied while taking down one of the guards.

The Evil Eye trio were not sure what was going on, but they did notice that their guards were being beaten by a group of misfit kids. They decided to turn and run while they had the chance. They grabbed Kim too and were going to get going.

"Oh, no you don't!" Jayden growled while chasing after the Evil Eye trio.

The trio did not make it as far as they would have liked. They ran into a rather frightening sight, a non-smiling giant who was no longer stuck in the air duct. Todd, who was the only one that did not bother to change clothes for the mission, looked about as pissed as one could imagine. The trio knew that his feelings were directed toward them too, and they could guess that it was not wise to make someone as tall and as wide as him upset.

"Let my Kimmie go," Todd commanded in a menacing tone. His family would have been surprised to hear his voice right now, not believing he was capable of sounding so frightening.

The Evil Eye trio gulped, immediately recognizing that they were in over their heads with the male redhead. Two of them turned to run while Todd grabbed Score, since he was closest. Larson and Guy ran right into Jayden, who did not hesitant in attacking. She caught them with sweep kicks, taking their legs out from underneath them.

--------------

"Um…Razi…" Bokuden said into his communication piece.

"Yeah?" Raziya replied.

"You said cut the red wire, right?" he asked nervously while looking down at the bomb, which he had stolen away into a dark corner after making his smoke covered entrance with his brother.

"Right, it's always the red wire," Raziya pointed out in a bit of an annoyed tone. Why was Bo acting so stupid? They had gone over the plan several times, so he should know what he was doing.

"What do I do when they're all red?" he inquired in a puzzled tone.

"All red?" she echoed as if she did not understand.

Bokuden did not even try to explain it. He just pointed the communication device the bomb and pressed a button on the side to give Raziya a visual of what he was looking at. Raziya's jaw practically hit the ground. The wires were all red (1). It would seem that they had hit a snag in the plan.

"I think you guys need to get out of there I.A.H," Raziya said. She did not have any better advice on the situation.

"Sounds good," Bokuden agreed since he had no clue how to disarm a bomb without Raziya's or Mayah's input.

"Bo…" Shego groaned in a low voice. His brother had grabbed her when they made the cliché ninja entrance complete with smoke. Nobunaga had run off to fight once he was sure that Shego was safe; he would not have even thought to grab the captured woman if Bokuden had not said anything.

"Aunt Shego," Bokuden said as he rushed to her side.

"Cut my ropes, kid. We can both have some fun then," Shego remarked with a weak chuckle. She felt like crap, but she would put that behind her if she could just lay some knuckles on one of those jerks that made a fool out of her.

"But, the bomb," the blonde teen pointed out.

"Just cut the ropes, kid. It's not real. They took it from a prop room."

Bokuden did not object again, cutting Shego loose with a short sword that he was carrying; he decided to bring a metal sword in case things got really serious. When Shego was free, Bokuden decided that he felt sorry for those three Evil Eye guys because of her determined expression. Shego was sluggish, but she was going to work through that and teach those jerks a lesson.

"C'mon, Bo. You came in for the long haul, so pull your weight," Shego remarked.

Bokuden followed behind the green-skinned warrior with a smile on his face. Shego went for the Evil Eye trio while Bokuden went to help his brother and their friends with the group of henchmen. Shego's first move in the brawl was to free her wife from her bound state to the chair.

"Thanks, love," Kim said with a smile as she leaped right into the fray, going to help the others with the henchmen because she did not want the kids to be hurt. Half of them were under ten years ago, after all.

"No problem, Princess," Shego said while stealing one of Jayden's playmates. She kicked Larson away from her daughter to beat him senseless on her own.

"Mommy, that one's mine!" Jayden whined.

"Be happy I left you with one!" Shego replied while igniting her hands to take care of Larson, who she blamed for her current drug-induced state, even though she knew that Guy was the ring leader of the bunch.

After a few minutes, the bad guys were practically climbing over each other to get out of the studio and be arrested. Betty and Will watched them run by while informing the agents outside to gather them up. Betty then watched as the heroes of the hour made their way down the hall.

"Why am I not surprised?" Betty commented while shaking her head. She did have a proud smile on her face, though.

"So, Mom, Mommy…we did good?" Jayden asked her parents. Kim was holding Shego up since she had over-worked her drugged body. Todd was helping in keeping Shego up because Kim just was too small to properly hold Shego.

"You all did great," Kim replied with a proud smile. She could not really be mad at them for doing something so reckless when she was the same way at their age. Hell, most of their parents were that way at their age.

"Enough for a party?" Jayden inquired with a hopeful smirk.

"We'll see about that one," Shego answered.

"Do I even want to know what you're all doing here?" Betty inquired while shaking her head as she walked up to the group.

"Just showing off," Mayah replied with a cocky smile.

Betty could not argue that bit. Well, she and the other parents knew it was coming one day soon; the kids were just going to have to get involved in missions. Well, at least they did not get hurt and hopefully in the future they would do things with better, more thorough planning. In fact, the planning would have been much better if Jayden had not been so anxious to get her mothers back.

While Betty went to deal with the Evil Eye trio, the kids went to pick up Raziya. Kim took Shego home for her to rest and to get the drugs out of her system. The adults did decide to treat their kids to dinner for such a job well-done, even though it was rather impulsive of them. It was a surprise to Felix, Monique, Yori, and Ron to find out why they were buying the kids a very expensive meal. They were proud of the kids, but they did scold them for doing something so insane and impulsive. Dear lord, their kids had grown into them, they all thought.

--------------

1: I'm pretty sure I took this from something, but I can't for the life of me remember what. Seems like something from Batman; I could see the Joker making a bomb with all red wires.

Next time: extra-long epilogue.


	52. Reason Fiftytwo: Final act

I don't own these characters. I also don't own the original premise behind this saga. I do own Todd, Jayden, Mayah, Raziya, Bokuden, Aztek, Romah, Nobunaga, and Chyna.

Reason Fifty-two: Final act

_They're going to be leaving their nests soon and, yes, they will be missed. But, we're all so proud of them. Hopefully, the world is ready for such extraordinary and insane people._

"Wow, guys, hard to believe we're going to be graduating in a couple of months," Mayah commented with a small smile on her face, speaking to her usual three friends. They were lounging against a grey wall while having their lunch outside in the sun since it was a beautiful spring day; most of the people that had lunch that period were outside. They were also seniors now; Mayah being seventeen while the other three were still sixteen.

They were all still filling out their body shapes. Mayah was still the tallest among them, much to Bokuden's dismay. He was the second tallest, but he was hoping for another growth spurt to put him over the top. Raziya and Jayden were not too far behind in height, but Jayden was still the smallest among them in both height and weight.

"It's about time," Raziya said while biting into a carrot stick. She wanted to throw her hands up and celebrate. She was certain that college was going to be way better, less annoying, and much more challenging than high school.

"What? I'm going to miss this place. No more Barkin to drive out of his mind!" Jayden declared with a huge grin as she leaned over and shamelessly bit into half of Bokuden's onigiri since he was holding it in his hand, but not eating it. He just looked on, not even in disbelief because it was not something that was new. He seemed almost bored with her actions.

"But, no more getting into trouble thanks to Barkin," Bokuden pointed out with a brief nod while finishing off his snack now that Jayden was done eating half of it.

"What? I love getting him all riled up," Jayden said with her typical impish grin, clapping her hands together. She rubbed her palms together for a moment like a demon.

"We know," her friends chimed in altogether. They all rolled their eyes. They knew all too well how much Jayden liked getting to the dean; she was making the man go gray from what they could tell.

Jayden was going to say something, but they were interrupted by a classmate. She was a nice girl that the group knew as well as they knew any other classmates that could claim to be friends with them. She had to know them fairly well because no one that was unfamiliar with them would dare approach them anyway; they had crazy reputations and typically backed those up with their insane actions. She greeted them with a bright smile while leaning down to talk to them since they were all sitting on the ground.

"Hey, guys, do you want to help raise money for the prom and play a little game?" she asked them. She was delightful looking brunette; shoulder length dark brown hair that hung freely. Her hazel eyes seemed to shine as she glided through school; whenever the crew saw her, they thought she appeared to float when she walked.

"Keep talking, Jess. You've got our attention," Mayah replied while putting down a bottle of water that she was drinking from. The others looked vaguely interested, which was about any of the classmates ever got from them when making propositions and announcements.

By now, their classmates knew that they would never truly be friends or even seen as peers with the group. It did give them a reputation for being stuck-up, even though their classmates knew they were not really snobs. There was just an air about them that let people know that they would never be on the same level in the group's eyes. With Mayah and Raziya it came out a bit more than Bokuden and Jayden, who just seemed a bit friendlier as they were more open to smiling than the other pair.

"I just need you guys to give me one dollar and I'll give you these surveys. You fill them out and get them to the prom committee's meeting room by the end of the week. Then in a couple of weeks you get the results back and they tell you ten other students in the school that you're compatible with, so it sorta helps you find a prom date if you need the help," the classmate explained with a friendly smile glued to her face. She was the type of person to smile most of the day; a very pleasant person to be around in the crew's opinions.

"Just a dollar? You won't raise much money with that," Raziya commented in a matter-of-fact tone. It was not like their graduating class was very big while their prom had better be fantastic in her opinion.

"We don't need much. The ticket cost covers a lot of the things, but we're raising some more money for extra stuff and we don't want the parents to help out with donations and things. We figured we students should handle it since it's our prom," the girl, Jess informed them with a small smile.

The friends nodded, all for showing signs of independence. Hell, that was one thing that they had been trying to do almost all of their lives, they figured anyway. They would not mind seeing what their classmates would cook up on their own. Hey, despite what their classmates thought, they did have faith in quite a few people that they got to know over the years.

"Sounds cool. Here, we'll help out," Bokuden said while going into his pants' pocket and pulling out his wallet. He pulled out a five and reached up to hand it to Jess. She leaned down to meet him halfway; her brown hair spilled slightly over her shoulders.

"This is for all of you?" Jess asked curiously, motioning to the four friends.

"Yeah, sure. Keep the change too," Bokuden replied coolly, almost smoothly. A lot the girls around school thought that he was smooth while his friends thought he was kind of lazy. To the girls in the school, his laidback attitude was cool while to his friends it was just pure laziness on his part. Sometimes, his friends would even just say that he was slow when it came to moving, nothing cool about it in their opinions.

"You're so sweet. I know you'll have no problem finding a date," Jess said to the blonde with what the girls considered a flirtatious smile.

"Why not jump in his lap while you're at it?" Jayden teased, making a kissy-face while she was at it.

Jess only scoffed, knowing that Jayden was joking. "You're probably going to end up going by yourself," Jess taunted Jayden while handing the friends a paper each.

"She's got you there, Jade," Mayah commented smugly, nodding to further show her agreement.

"Fuck, no. If push comes to shove, I'll take you, Mayah," Jayden replied with a playful smile. She nudged the older girl with her elbow, having to lean over Raziya to make that move.

"I hope you don't think you'll get lucky at the end of the night if that's the case," Mayah remarked with a scoff. She also rolled her mismatched eyes. Like hell she would go to any sort of formal party with Jayden as a date, even if she did go out with girls. She got enough craziness just from being the younger girl's best friend, after all.

"Speaking of me, lemme ask you something, Jess," Jayden said while turning her attention back to their classmate.

"It's not going to be stupid is it?" Jess inquired, earning a couple of chuckles from Mayah and Raziya since they knew that Jess was only teasing. They were comfortable around a few people in school that could get away with such a question and earn laughs from the crew.

"Most things coming from Jade are stupid," Mayah pointed out in a dry tone.

"Anyway, this romantic compatibility thing you're talking about, does it include both sexes or are you going to give me back ten dudes, knowing I don't like guys?" Jayden inquired. She was quite serious about it too. She was not going to waste her time if she was going to get back ten boys when she was so certain that she was homosexual.

"Goddamn it, Jade, you're not a lesbian!" Mayah huffed and she looked ready to strangle her friend.

Raziya was glaring at Jayden right along with Mayah. How the hell could a girl that never showed signs of a romantic interest in anything at all believe she was a lesbian?! They could not figure it out and they did not see why a so-called intelligent person like Jayden could so openly swear that she was gay when they did not even think she went through puberty yet; they just meant that in the way that Jayden never seemed to look at anyone like _that_.

Jess only shook her head; the group was rather amusing when they were given a chance, she thought. "Jade, if you read the thing, you'll see there's a box you can check for what you want to get back. So, you guys should do that, just for the fun of it," she told them.

"I don't need to do it. I already know the perfect guy for me," Mayah said with a dreamy smile. Her mismatched eyes seemed to shine as she thought of her perfect guy.

Jess looked at her with a confused expression; actually she looked damn near scared. Mayah was the "tough" one in the group, so to see her all starry-eared was like seeing the grey skin before a powerful storm rolled in. It was like a warning to run.

"Uh…yeah, so we'll fill that out quick and drop it off, if only for the fun of it," Jayden told Jess, just so she could get away before Mayah disturbed her even more. Jess took the chance to bid them farewell and get away from there before Mayah did get creepier.

"Are we really going to do this?" Raziya inquired curiously while looking down at the survey with slight disgust. There were better things that she could do with her time, she figured.

"Why the hell not? What's the harm, right?" Jayden countered with a shrug.

"It does give us something to do for lunch. You know, aside for eat my food," Bokuden remarked, looking at Jayden with that last bit.

"It's not my fault you just sit there with it in your hand, not eating the thing," Jayden argued, turning to look back at him.

"You didn't give me a chance," he pointed out, arms flying out to the side to emphasize his point.

The youngest scoffed. "You were just holding it."

"I just took it out the bag," he stated. Jayden rolled her eyes and made a mocking face. He rolled his eyes too and playfully shoved her very lightly. She laughed a bit.

Mayah and Raziya shook their heads to the exchange. The friends all then turned their attention to the survey. They read the questions and looked at the choices that they had; it was multiple choice for the whole thing. They then went into their book-bags, looking for pens to fill the sheets out.

----(New day)

"You should see the cost of this fucking prom dress that Mayah wants," Betty complained over the phone, speaking to Shego. They were trying their best to relax on their day off, but they knew that was not likely to happen until the kids graduated. There was just so much to do!

"Tell her she got off easy," Kim informed Shego, her face pressed against hot green skin.

They were lounging on the sofa, curled up together since they had the house to themselves. Mayah and Raziya decided to come steal Jayden away and torment her by making her go shopping with them for prom accessories. The house was quiet for once; they were definitely going to enjoy it.

"How'd she get off easy?" Shego inquired curiously, glancing down at her wife.

"Mo is making Razi's dress," Kim answered, still focusing on nice flesh more than anything else. "She could have to make Mayah a dress from scratch."

"Oh, wow. Hey, Bets, you got off lightly. At least you only have to buy a damn dress," Shego told her best friend with a bit of a laugh. One hand held the phone while the other busied itself by rubbing Kim's back.

"You got off the easiest. I'm shocked Jade's even going to this thing," Betty remarked with a laugh of her own. She was lounging around her own house; all of the kids were gone. She figured it was a miracle for there to be peace and quiet in her home. She almost forgot what that was like.

"Mayah threatened to shoot her in the knee with a rifle if she didn't," Shego replied with another hearty chuckle.

"Oh, I thought that was just their usual barking at each other when she said that the other day. What's Jade doing about an outfit? Is she going in her usual Care Bear attire?" the one-eyed woman asked in a teasing tone, an amused smile gracing her features.

"No, that was in with the threats to make Jade go to the prom. We're handling what the mini-monster will be wearing. Gotta admit the little imp isn't in a hurry to find a date," Shego commented.

"Oh, the little lesbian can't find a date," Betty hummed. She was not surprised by that. She would be more surprised if Jayden found a date on her own and actually showed some interest in the person. And she meant person because she was not totally sold on Jayden being gay either, no matter how much the girl wanted everyone to believe it.

"Jade's not even looking for a date and even if she was, she'd probably not find one on purpose. She's not interested in girls, despite what she wishes the world to believe, and she refuses to look at boys. Jade might be working toward building a career as a monk," the pale woman joked with a laugh.

Jayden was not showing any signs of leaning toward either sex. She was too interested in getting into stuff from what everyone else could tell. They figured that simple attraction just had not caught up with the hyperactive girl yet.

Betty chuckled a bit from picturing Jayden as a monk. "I hope she has a plan B if that's the case."

"Knowing her, she's got a plan for every letter of the alphabet, but they're all only half-baked. So, Mayah's handling the limo, I hear," Shego said.

"Yeah, she wanted to have a hand in this beyond spending up a bunch of money. So, she's arranging the limo. I worry about who she's going to find to take her as a date," Betty commented, sighing a bit. She sounded slightly concerned.

"She's mature enough now to know that she should leave Smiley alone," or so Shego hoped. Betty did not respond to that one and she was actually making a skeptical face to it.

--------------

"So, you two find dates yet?" Mayah asked Raziya and Jayden as they wandered the mall. She sounded a bit interested, even though she could guess the answer from each of her friends.

Bokuden had escaped the fate of accompanying them to the mall by volunteering to drive his little brother and Romah to the arcade. He had never been so happy to be in a car with those two maniacs. He hated shopping with the girls, especially Mayah and Raziya because they shopped like it was a competitive sport. Jayden liked to act like she was above that, but if there was something that sparked her interest, she could rival her friends in shopping.

"I'm not even trying. The last thing I want to do is plan on having a good time and find the one component that could F.I.U," Raziya commented with a scoff. She rolled her sky-colored eyes too.

"Why do you assume a date would fuck it up?" Mayah inquired with a puzzled voice and a craned eyebrow as she turned to look at the tan teen.

"Because he'd do something stupid undoubtedly. Most of our classmates are idiots," Raziya pointed out as if her friends did not know that.

"I hadn't noticed," Mayah and Jayden commented sarcastically at the same time.

"Yeah, so I probably won't even take a date. What about you, Jade?" Raziya inquired, although she could guess that one.

"I dunno." Jayden shrugged. "You guys know me."

Raziya and Mayah shrugged too. Jayden had yet to show an interest in dating, which they thought was weird. But then again, Jayden was weird, so they did not put too much stock into her odd behavior.

Mayah actually had not shown much interest in dating either, but they all knew why that was. Raziya just seemed to have high standards and had not made it through a date since starting the activity almost a year ago. All in all, two out of three of them were quite aware of being failures in romance.

"So, you're gonna try to get Booger to take you?" Jayden asked Mayah with a teasing grin curled on her face.

Mayah only smirked; she was going to get her Todd to take her to the prom or die trying. Her friends did not say anything; they just wanted to see her work her magic. If anyone deserved to take Todd to the prom, it was her, after all.

----(New day)

"Hey, guys!" Jess called to the crew as she trotted down the hallway of the school. The foursome turned to see the brunette girl running up to them.

"What's up?" Raziya inquired as the friends stopped.

"I've got your survey results for you," Jess informed them as she started digging into a folder that she was holding.

"Survey?" Jayden echoed, totally confused as to what their classmate was going on about.

"Oh, that's right, it's been a busy couple of weeks for you, so there's no way in hell that you'd remember something like the survey," Mayah commented, laughing as she spoke.

"Survey?" Jayden echoed again. She had had a busy couple of weeks, running around in some jungles with her Mom. They had been hunting for new species of cold-blooded critters and doing all sorts of crazy things that most people probably did not think a sixteen-year-old should be doing or even could be doing. The survey that they took a fortnight ago was just about the last thing on her mind.

"Just give them to us. Jade'll stand here wondering what the hell you're talking about for the whole day," Mayah said to Jess while Raziya tried her best to explain to Jayden just what survey they were all going on about.

"Okay, here you guys go," Jess said while pulling out four sheets of paper. She handed one to Mayah, then Bokuden, then Raziya, and then Jayden.

"Thanks a lot," they all mumbled and Jess trotted off to go deliver other surveys to people.

While Raziya, Jayden, and Bokuden looked down at their surveys, Mayah unceremoniously balled hers up. The three friends had to gaze up to see what Mayah was up to. She went to a trash can and disposed of her survey without even looking at it.

"Why'd you do that?" Raziya inquired with a puzzled expression on her face. What was the point of even taking the thing if she was just going to throw it away?

"Because Booger doesn't go to this school," Jayden realized with a chuckle.

"Yeah, there's no chance of Smiley being on the list, so what's the fucking point?" Mayah commented with a nonchalant shrug. She was not going to waste her time looking over a bunch of boys that she did not even care about. It had been fun filling out the survey, though.

"Well, let's see who they screwed us over with," Jayden remarked and they all looked down at their papers.

"Holy shit," Raziya muttered, actually swearing, so that let her friends know that things were serious. They all turned their attention to her.

"What's it say?" Bokuden asked curiously. He leaned over a bit, trying to take a look at her paper. How bad could it be, he wondered.

"It says the person I'm most compatible with in this school is the fucking dirt-bomb! This list is total bullshit!" Raziya hollered in disbelief. She actually appeared offended with the results; more the first result than anything else on the paper. She did not even notice anything after the top result.

"When you say 'dirt-bomb' do you mean…" Jayden could not even finish that thought. She just pointed to Mayah while her face scrunched up in utter confusion.

"Yeah, do you mean…?" Mayah also could not finish the question. She looked just as lost as the youngest amongst them did.

"Aztek," Raziya said in a low voice and her face fell. The aforementioned dirt-bomb was actually trotting up to them.

"Hey, did you get this fucking list?" Aztek demanded to know, speaking to Raziya while flapping a paper around. He was now teenager of average height with a slender build. He was a track star at the school and had a small, weird fan-club; it was weird in his big sister's opinion anyway. But, then again, he would say the same of the fan-club that she and her friends had; and they did have a little cult following for reasons that they tried to act like they did not think about.

"Yeah, I got it. You don't read too much into it either!" Raziya commanded, annoyed that he would even approach her waving the stupid list in her face.

"I'm not, but this thing is bullshit, remember that. I don't even like you!" Aztek lied. He thought of Raziya as a friend, like Jayden, he mentally insisted; a friend that he liked pestering the hell out of. Oh, it was so much fun getting on her nerves!

"I never liked you!" Raziya pointed out in a roar. Through out their lives, Aztek did nothing but get on her nerves with his disgusting, annoying, and amazingly loud behavior for someone with such a small voice.

"Then keep that shit up!" Aztek ordered with force. He then did something irksome, hitting her in her little nose with his paper and then he sped off laughing.

"You little bastard! I'll get you back later!" Raziya screamed up the hall, shaking her fist at the fleeing goy.

"You know…" Mayah was about to offer up a very unwanted theory, so Raziya cut her off.

"Don't even fucking say it!" Raziya commanded the older girl with a finger in the elder teen's face. She knew that some insane theory like that she subconsciously liked Aztek was about to come out of Mayah's mouth. She did not want to hear any of her friend's pseudo-psychobabble.

"Fine, fine, fine," Mayah said with a shrug. She did put the idea in the back of her head that despite how much Raziya and Aztek liked to pretend they hated each other, they always did give each other a lot of attention. Yeah, it was mostly negative attention, but they still paid each other a lot of mind. She could not help wondering.

"Who do you guys have anyway?" Raziya asked Jayden and Bokuden while trying to fix her tense face.

Jayden and Bokuden both looked down at their results, finally getting a chance to take in the words on the paper. They then looked like they had both seen a ghost at the same time. Their friends were quite intrigued by such reactions; could they have actually had something better/worst than Aztek?

"Who's it say?" Mayah and Raziya asked curiously, speaking at the same time.

Jayden and Bokuden were too stunned to speak. They merely pointed at each other while looking up, their expressions showing the very definition incredulous. Mayah and Raziya were not sure if they should laugh outright or if Mayah should just demand the ten dollars that she and Raziya bet two weeks ago that Bokuden would end up on Jayden's list. They made that bet after erasing the check that Jayden put in the box requesting just girls in her results. They decided to laugh because Jayden was actually speechless with the results.

"Look at her face!" Mayah said, cracking up and pointing right at Jayden. The olive-eyed girl was still in such disbelief that she could not respond to such disrespect toward her.

Raziya just laughed harder; she needed a good chuckle after that crap with Aztek, she thought. Bokuden managed to get over his shock; and there it was he thought the list was just a stupid bit of nonsense. He glanced at Jayden, who was still so stunned that she of all people was speechless.

"I think they broke her," Raziya commented with a giggle, poking the youngest in the forehead.

"She short-circuited," Mayah remarked, still laughing.

"What the FUCK!" Jayden screamed at the top of her lungs for almost thirty seconds of sheer silence. Mayah and Raziya only laughed harder. When Jayden went home, she told the story to her parents and her mothers had the same reaction to her friends; they laughed long and hard. Jayden did not take kindly to the reaction at all, but then again, Bokuden had not taken kindly to her reaction.

--------------

Jayden was laid out on her bed, trying to go to sleep. She was plagued by the list though and how it proclaimed that she was romantically compatible with Bokuden. How weird was that? They might as well have told her that she was romantically compatible with Raziya while they were at it. She shuddered in disgust just thinking about it.

She was taken out of her thoughts just from sensing movement out of her window. She knew that it was Bokuden more from habit than anything else. He was the only moron of their group that continued to test her mothers' security system to see if his skills were worthwhile; not to mention he had to sneak out of his own house, which was also a test of his skills. She sat up as he came through the window.

"Bo, this is gonna get you fucking killed one day," she commented with a bit of a laugh. She made sure to speak in a low voice.

"Well, this is the best way to get a serious conversation out of you," he pointed out in a whisper of his own. Talking to Jayden alone on the street or even in a house, one had to rush through words because it was only a matter of time before she got distracted by some crazy thought or something amusing around her. But, in her room right before she was going to go to bed, there was nothing to pull her from the conversation and she liked to hear him out just to get him out of the room before her Mommy came in.

"Why, what's to talk about?" Jayden asked curiously.

"The thing…" he answered while looking down at the floor, which was littered with books and parts to god-only-knew-what. He would not be surprised if there were living things crawling and slithering around on the floor too.

"The thing?" she echoed with a puzzled expression that he was able to see since his eyes had adjusted to the dark before he even left his home.

"The list thing," he elaborated while making strange, meaningless hand gestures.

"Oh, the list. Don't worry about it, Bo. Those guys are just loopy. After all, they paired Razi with Az and we all know how they get along," Jayden said, thinking that she was comforting him. She figured that he had to be as bothered by the thought as she was because she thought that her feelings were natural.

Bokuden chuckled a bit, mostly because he did not know what else to do. "You know, for someone so smart, you say some really dumb things," he commented while shaking his head.

Jayden was taken back by his words. Usually, he was last person amongst them to insult her; hell, Chyna was known to say more offensive things to her than Bokuden. And for once when an affront was said to her, it actually hurt Jayden because it came from him.

"Wha…what do you mean?" Jayden managed to ask, her voice smaller than a whisper and it had nothing to do with the fact that her Mommy was sleeping right down the hall.

Bokuden sighed and just decided to go with the most straightforward approach to the whole thing. "Jade, will you go to the prom with me?" he requested, looking her in the face despite how shy he was feeling at the moment.

"Well, yeah. I'm going with all you guys after all," she pointed out. She was not looking at him, her feelings still stinging from his insult. "But, now tell me what you meant."

"You're doing it again," he commented and he laughed a bit since most of the time that she did say something subtly stupid, it was cute; well, in his opinion anyway. "Jade, I know this is going to seem like a foreign concept to you, but I actually like you." He made the statement with no fear or hesitation.

"That doesn't explain why you said I say dumb things," she grumbled, looking away with her mouth curled up.

Bokuden sighed again and went to sit next to her on the bed. He leaned back, comfortable in the space despite the fact that he would be dead before he knew it if Shego or Todd happened to enter the room for whatever reason. It was just difficult to be uneasy in a place that he had been in thousands of times, even if those times were mostly when adults were aware that he was there or their other friends were around. He looked at her from over his shoulder since she was by the wall.

He supposed he could not blame her. She seemed stuck in the same adolescent mindset that she always had. He was not sure how it worked because he knew that since puberty certain things almost never left his mind. He just controlled himself rather well.

"I'll make this plain for you, genius. I like you and I want you to go to prom with me as my date. Not as a friend in a group, even though we're going to do that, but I want you to be my personal date. We would take a picture together, we'll dance, and if all goes well, I get to kiss you at the end of the night. Anything more and I won't live to see college, after all," he explained with a little laugh in the end and she looked absolutely stunned. He might as well have just told her the moon was made of cheese from the expression on her face.

"Wait, Bo…you mean…you actually like me like me?" she asked in a puzzled tone and he nodded. "Since when?" she hissed to keep from shouting. Damn it, she wished that he sprang that news on her in the daytime so she could be yelling.

"Hmm…I guess since about tenth grade. That's about when I noticed you had a killer body," he remarked, teasing her since she had been built like a little boy until about last year. Now, she had a body just like Kim's when Kim was her age.

"Seriously," she urged him with a smile on her face and she nudged him with her foot. She did not know what else to do. She really just wanted to freak out, but she refused to be loud at the moment.

"Well, it was about ninth or tenth grade. Then these feelings just kinda came out of nowhere. I mean, I think I always liked you, but just never realized it until tenth grade. I thought we always had something. I don't know what the something is, but it's something," he explained as best he could.

He wished that he was better with words and better comprehended what was going on with him, so he could be sure that he got through to her. He guessed that he was just going to have to hope that her so-called genius mind understood him. He also hoped that he was right about his feelings and that he was right in telling her. He did not want to ruin one of the best friendships of his life, after all. Although he doubted that just telling her was going to mess anything up between them; they had been through so much already, after all.

Jayden was silent; she never really noticed that _something_. It was just the way that she was around him, always had been and she figured that she always would be. She did not think that it was something special, but now that he brought it up, she was thinking about it. There was something between them that really did not exist between her and their other friends, but she had never really thought about it. After all, she got along differently with Mayah and Raziya, just like she got along differently with Bokuden, but still there was something to it. She was not sure if he was guessing right as to what that "something" was, though.

"Bo…how do you know this something means you like me?" she asked curiously, an eyebrow in the air.

"I dunno. I just do," he replied with a shrug. It was the best that he could do. He wished that he could think of something better, if only to insure that she would go along with him and hopefully realize something of her own. He was pretty sure that he liked her anyway.

Jayden scrunched up her face; apparently she did not deal well with ambiguous notions/emotions. Was she feeling the same something as he was? She did recognize and acknowledge there was "something" between them. She was not sure if it was what he meant, though.

She was supposed to be a lesbian, she reminded herself. Maybe her emotions were not on the same side as her brain, though. Or maybe Bokuden was misinterpreting what they had between them. Well, in order to find out, she would have to experiment, her mind told her. That made sense; it was time to do research.

"Okay, Bo, I will be your date for prom," she informed him with a nod for good measure.

Bokuden was almost certain that he had not heard right because he had thought that things would be much harder than that. He looked at her with a near-insane expression on his face, like she just told him that she was actually an alien from outer space. It was her turn to laugh as she caught sight of the look etched on his face.

"Did you…?" he asked, unable to finish because he was scared to find out the answer.

"I just accepted. Now, get outta here before Mommy comes in here. They do check on me every now and then to make sure my loopy ass is still in the house," she answered. Sometimes, they checked on her and her "loopy ass" was indeed somewhere that was not her bedroom.

"Okay, but just to be sure, you accepted being my date, right?" he inquired to ease his mind and stop his heart from beating so fast.

"Yes, I'll be your date. Now, unless you want me to be carrying you around in a coffin or an urn to dance, you'll get the hell outta here," she ordered, pointing to the window.

Bokuden laughed a bit and made a quick, happy exit. He had a prom date. Better still, he had a prom date with Jayden! He could not be happier with his life at the moment; obvious signs of insanity his other friends might say.

----(New day)

"Prom's nearly a week away. You ask Smiley yet?" Raziya asked Mayah, turning to look the older girl in the face. The pair were dragging Jayden through the mall again; it seemed that no matter how much she cussed or whined, they did not care that she did not want to go.

"No, I'm going to ask him soon, though. Jade, you don't mind, do you?" Mayah inquired to make sure. She looked down at the gloomy girl, who was walking in the middle. It was in case she tried to run.

"Why the fuck would I mind? Unless of course minding would get me the hell out of this place with you two prissy bitches," Jayden complained bitterly. She looked quite sour, her arms folded across her chest and a deep frown on her face.

"You know, you're crankier than usual," Mayah commented, looking down at the shortest among them again. "Is it because you're going to the prom with a certain blonde ninja whose onigiri you always eat?" she teased with a rather evil smile. Her mismatched eyes sparkled with devilish delight because she knew that she struck gold as far as material to use against the raven-haired girl.

"Shut up," Jayden grumbled and scowled. She snorted a bit too, just to make her point.

"We should go find Miss Grumpy Jade a cute outfit for the prom to make sure Bo is happy," Raziya teased, putting her arm around the younger girl's shoulders and rocking her back and forth a bit.

"Why not just skip to some cute underwear? I'm sure that'll make Bo really happy," Mayah remarked with a huge, taunting grin. She then had the nerve to pat Jayden on the head.

"Goddamn it! Cut that shit out!" Jayden said while tearing away from both girls. She glared at the pair with the fires of Hell blazing in her olive eyes.

"I didn't think of that," Raziya said and then she turned to Jayden. She waved an authoritative finger in Jayden's face. She then sounded very much like the big sister that she was. "Now, now, young lady, there'll be none of that on the first date," she ordered.

"Shut the hell up, both of you," Jayden grumbled unhappily since cursing them out did not seem to work. Teasing her about her personality was one thing, but the fact that they were taunting her because she had a date was a new kind of animal to her and she did not like it much. "Who are you going with anyway?" Jayden asked Raziya.

The other scientist's expression fell almost instantly. Her friends were quickly interested in why that was. Mayah had a theory of course, as she was never short on those, but sharing it might have sparked some heated yelling in the middle of the mall. Hell, it could possibly lead to a fight if she said it in a certain way.

"You know, the results of that damn survey have been really bugging me," Raziya admitted and Mayah practically screamed in triumph on the inside.

"Have you realized they're right?" Mayah inquired, a new devilish smile curling onto her full lips.

"W.T.F do you mean 'they're right'? Like hell they are!" Raziya objected with a passion. Her sapphire eyes seemed to ignite.

"Umm…no, they're really right," Mayah argued, putting up her index finger as if that made her words more true.

"Can I field this one?" Jayden inquired, raising her hand just to be silly.

Mayah motioned for her to take over. "By all means. If you see it, then a fucking blind man could see it."

"You make it sound as if you two go around doubting my genius," Jayden commented, smiling a bit.

"No, it's your common sense we doubt. We doubt that shit exists," Mayah quipped with a good-natured smile of her own.

The youngest of the trio laughed a bit. "Anyway, I think the whole with you and Az is based on the fact that you pay a hell of a lot of attention to each other," she said to Raziya. Personally, Jayden figured that they paid a lot of attention to each other because Aztek liked getting on Raziya's nerves and Raziya refused to just let him. But, she was aware that Mayah had a thing for trying to look beneath things, which was why she knew the theory buzzing around in the eldest's head.

"That's because the little filth-monger is always getting on my nerves!" Raziya argued. Her eyebrows bent in and her mouth turned downward in a scowl. He was such a little bastard, she thought. Ah, she hated him!

"Well, just imagine if one day the nut decided that bugging you was boring, like everything else in his life. One day he just stopped annoying," Mayah proposed, thinking it would help.

"I'd die a happy woman," Raziya declared as if it was obvious.

"You'd live the rest of your life wondering why the hell he stopped paying attention to you," Jayden remarked in a low tone while shaking her head. She was smiling a bit; it was fun not being taunted for once.

"I'd love it," Raziya insisted.

"Uh-huh," Jayden and Mayah chimed in together with skeptical tones. They also nodded simultaneously.

"Look, Razi, you should do like me," Jayden said, being about as serious as she could be about a subject that had nothing to do with science or adventures.

"And what would that be?" Raziya inquired, almost scared to hear the answer.

"It's called research and experimenting. Now, I don't know if I like Bo the same way he likes me. I never really thought about it, so by accepting being his prom date gives me a chance to figure that out. You could figure out if you like Az by taking him to the prom… and us threatening to tie him to the tree in the backyard and beating the living shit out of him if he doesn't behave," Jayden explained plainly.

"I don't like Az," Raziya insisted through gritted teeth.

"If you say so," Jayden replied with a shrug.

Despite her insistence of disliking Aztek, Raziya did let the thought plague her mind. Was she really romantically compatible with such a filthy urchin? Well, he was fairly intelligent, discounting the fact that he liked being dirty for whatever reason; intelligence was something that she looked for in a guy. He was fun to be around, when he was not purposely irking the hell out of her. He did not mind the fact that she was smarter than he was; it was something that got on the nerves of a few guys that she dated. They were interested in a few of the same things, some things that other guys viewed as strange, like the fact that she enjoyed taking things apart and putting them back together, sometimes in a different form then their original make. Damn it, was she really compatible with Aztek of all guys? She did not want to believe it.

--------------

The trio of girls went to Mayah's house for lack of a better thing to do and Mayah wanted to show off her prom dress. Raziya disappeared for a minute, in search of Aztek. She found him in the backyard, playing basketball by himself. He was not very good at it, but he still liked the sport.

"Hey, you!" Raziya called in a heated tone, as if she was angry with him.

"What the hell do you want?" Aztek asked with a huff while turning to look at her in mid-jump shot.

"You're taking me to the prom. You will be on time in picking me up. You will dress nicely in a brand new suit. You will remain clean for the entire night. You will make sure I have a good time. Is that understood?" she demanded to know.

Aztek was caught off guard by her commands and so distracted that he fell when he landed from his jump. He was not hurt and kept his shocked gaze upon her. He noticed that she looked completely serious.

"What makes you think I'd take a geek like you to the prom?" Aztek inquired with a frown.

"Because I said so. Mayah'll go over more rules for you later on, but that's the gist of it. So, you're taking me, got it?" she informed him with a growl.

Raziya walked away before Aztek could answer, which was a good idea. He would have had to decline if she waited for a response; it would have bothered her if he did such a thing and he could not pass up such an opportunity. He sighed and laughed to himself.

"I'm just as screwed up as the rest of this bunch," he said to himself. "But, at least I'm screwed up with a hot date." He grinned. Hey, while he liked pissing her off, he would never dispute that the girl looked good.

Raziya tried not to think too much on what just happened. It was just an experiment, she told herself. An experiment that she doubted would go anywhere, but at least she was willing to try.

She went upstairs to Mayah's room, which was huge and littered with weapons of all types along with plenty of weapons' and computer magazines. Mayah and Jayden were by Mayah's large closet, looking at the prom dress. She joined the pair.

"Well, Mayah, you're the only dateless wonder now," Raziya announced in a neutral tone and matching expression.

"Well, then, I'd better get on the ball," Mayah commented with a smile. She clapped and rubbed her hands together.

----(New day)

Mayah caught Todd when he was home alone, resting from his latest trip out into the field. Jayden had phoned her to let her know that Todd was there all by his lonesome. So, it was time to get what she felt was the perfect prom date.

"Hey, Mayah. Jade's not here," Todd informed her as he opened the door thanks to her knocking.

"That's okay. I'm not here to see Jade," Mayah replied in a plain tone while stepping into the house.

"No?" Todd asked and it took him less than a second to know who she was there to see.

"Smiles, I have to ask you something," Mayah said, turning to look him square in the eye. He was the only person that she had to look up at to speak directly to; most other adults she was level with.

"Mayah, I know what you're going to say," Todd replied with a sigh. He had been dreading the moment. He wished that she had just found a regular guy from her school to take her to the prom, but it seemed like she was insistent on going with him.

"Then you know what you have to answer," Mayah argued, desperation already edging its way onto her face.

"How's that?" he asked curiously. He was certain that he had to decline, but that could not be the case as far as Mayah was concerned with the way that she was approaching him.

"Smiles, this is my dream. You have to take me to the prom. I'm not asking much of you, just take me to the prom," she implored him with a pleading, sorrowful look in her mismatched eyes.

Todd sighed; why did it seem like all the girls around him knew the expression to give him that just about broke his heart? She looked like he would shatter her whole world if he said no. He looked down nervously, rubbing his head and further messing up his short crimson hair.

"I just want you to take me to the prom, please," she begged him quietly, eyes glued to his. Her eyes just looked raw with emotion and need. "Just give me this one thing," she pled.

By now, being seventeen, Mayah understood that she sort of frightened Todd. He did not understand the intensity of her affections or where it came from; she did not either. She just knew that she loved him with all of her heart and it would be a dream come true for her if he would just take her to the prom. It would make the prom a special day for her, like it was supposed to be for a girl her age.

Todd rubbed his forehead. He always swore that he was doing such a fine job running away from Mayah, yet whenever he looked back, she was right on his heels. It seemed like she passed him at the moment and tackled him, halting his running for the time. But, he was going to struggle for a bit longer.

"Mayah, I'm sure there's a great guy that'll take you," he replied.

"Yeah, you," she stated firmly. It was not something that she was going to be talked out of. It was him or nothing, like always. "I'm just asking you to take me to the prom. I'm not asking for anything else. Just be my escort."

"Mayah, you really should go to the prom with someone else."

"I'm not going with someone else. You're going to be my escort or I'll just be a fifth wheel to everyone. Simple as that," she informed him plainly.

Todd sighed again; the guilt just kept on building. He merely stopped struggling. Mayah had him for the moment; it was the first time, but they did not know it would not be the last time.

"Fine, I'll take you," the redhead mumbled, lime eyes focusing on the floor instead of her.

Mayah grinned. "Thank you, Smiley!" she proclaimed and grabbed him into a tight hug.

From the feel of the embrace, he could tell that he really had just made her day. He then pulled out of the hug, causing her to laugh a bit. She was too happy to be offended by his actions.

"Don't worry, Mister Smiley, you'll not get away from me so easily," Mayah promised him with a smile on her face. She even winked at him. He was hers and one day, she was determined to make him realize that. Todd only gulped; he knew that he had just agreed himself into some trouble.

----(Prom night)

The crew was all gathered at the Possible-Gooding household; it just seemed to be their default meeting place. Their families were with them. Adults were fussing over clothing while also trying to snap pictures; many of those would be sent to grandparents and uncles that could not make it to the event, but would be there for graduation next month. Younger siblings were giggling over all of the formal wear, except for Chyna, who just wanted to know when she would get to wear a nice dress and go to the prom. Betty promised her youngest child that she would be able to follow in her big sister's path soon; it would be way too soon for Betty.

"Oh, god, I love your shoes," Raziya practically cooed when she saw what Mayah had on. She looked rather to burst from happiness, despite the fact that she was still skeptical about having Aztek as a date.

"Yours are cute too," Mayah chimed in, eyes shining with delight because of the magic of the night.

Mayah was dressed in black, showing off a figure that made her parents quite nervous and had for a couple of years now since it easily caught boys' attention. Her dress went down to her feet, fitting sleekly until hitting halfway down her calves where it flowed out. The dress would have touched the floor, but she was wearing high heel, open-toe black shoes. The shoes had thin straps that wrapped around her ankles and the heel was open too. Her dress was held up by thin straps tied around her neck. She had on simple, but expensive diamond necklace, matching earrings, and a slim tiara crowning her head. Her hair, which was cut short now, was styled to almost completely cover her brown eye.

Raziya had gone with a lilac gown, which had been handmade by her mother. There was golden trim marking it around the waist with a small strand of golden cloth falling from her waist to her side. There were no straps holding the dress up, much to Felix's horror. A line of gold went around the top edge of the dress, highlighting the light caramel skin that was left on display. Her shoes matched her gown, which were also high heels and a bit higher than Mayah's shoes. In fact, they were also the same height thanks to the extra inch on her shoes.

"Hey, you two, smile," Monique told the girls as she came out of nowhere with a camera.

Raziya and Mayah wasted no time in striking a pose for the camera. Monique laughed as she snapped the shot; it was hard to believe those two were actually tomboys. As soon as the flash faded, Mayah and Raziya looked around the living room, which was where they were.

"Where's Jade?" they both wondered aloud.

"She'll be down in a second," Todd answered while entering the room and fiddling with his tie. Shego was by his side, pulling his tie in the opposite direction than he was doing. He sighed and just gave up, letting her do whatever she was doing.

Mayah's jaw practically hit the floor when she caught sight of Todd, even though it was not her first time seeing him dressed formally; it was the first time that he was her date, though. He was dressed in a jet black suit that he filled out quite well thanks to his tall, thick build. His jacket was longer than most, going passed his knees. He had on a light, lime green vest with a black tie. He wore black shoes and had his hair combed back, but hidden underneath a black bowler hat, which had a green feather in it. The hat was cocked to the side. It would seem that he was taking his job as escort seriously.

"You might wanna pick up your tongue before you get dirt on it," Raziya remarked while nudging Mayah with her elbow.

"Huh?" Mayah muttered in such a daze that she did not even notice her mother approach Todd.

"Smiles, if you do anything to my daughter, I will shoot you, several times in the chest and head, without mercy," Betty whispered to the young man while patting him in the chest with force. It actually hurt quite a bit.

"And I won't stop her," Shego promised her son with a nod.

"What is wrong with you two? You know I'm not gonna do anything!" Todd protested in a low voice. The only reason he was even taking Mayah was because she looked so heartbroken when he tried to decline. It was nothing more than that!

"I just want us to be clear on it, buddy-boy," Betty said in a dead serious tone.

"I'm just going to take her to the prom and the after-party thing, nothing more than that," Todd insisted. Betty nodded, even though she knew that he was not going to be planning anything with her daughter.

"Make sure they don't run off to do something stupid in those prom outfits too," Shego commented and she was not referring to what stupid things teenagers usually do after prom. She was referring to what those impulsive, insane kids might do, like try to do a mission once they figured out that the prom was boring.

"Gotcha," Todd said with a little salute.

"And please watch your sister," Shego implored Todd with a tired look in her eyes. She did not even want to think about what trouble Jayden could get into and lead her friends into while everyone was dressed in very expensive formal clothing.

"Mommy, take a picture, please!" Mayah begged with a grin as she came out of nowhere and attached herself to Todd's arm.

"Okay, calm down, Mee-mee," Betty said with a sigh as she raised her camera. Todd actually had a panicked look on his face when she took the picture.

Shego chuckled a bit and walked into the living room. She thought that Todd was making a mistake in taking Mayah to the prom, but Kim had thought that it was such a sweet gesture. Shego believed that it only encouraged Mayah more, which they were all trying their best to avoid. Betty agreed with her, of course, but found it hard to say anything to Mayah when she saw how excited her daughter was because Todd agreed to take her to the prom.

Shego stopped thinking about her son and Mayah and went over to Bokuden, who was dressed in all white. His parents were fussing over him just like everyone else's. He looked like he would like an excuse to escape, but would rather a different one than the one that showed up.

"Lemme borrow your golden boy for a second," Shego said to Ron and Yori, who did not object. They knew what was coming had to happen, so they watched as Shego pulled Bokuden off to the side.

"Don't get blood on your good suit, bro!" Nobunaga called with a laugh. He was sitting in the corner with Romah, laughing over everyone's prom gear. They thought that their older siblings looked downright ridiculous.

"Um…Auntie Shego, I know just what you're gonna say," Bokuden muttered, looking at her. The kids typically tried to make eye contact whenever they spoke because that was how they were raised. Sometimes, they failed, but it was not often.

"Look, Bo, I know you're a good kid, crazy, but good. Still, if my little monster comes home with a mark on her, I don't care what the mark is, I'm going to kill you and not with my plasma. I'm just going to gouge out chucks of your flesh with my bare hands until I've torn you apart," Shego promised him, sounding so casual that he knew she was serious.

"But…what if she gets into a fight?" Bokuden whimpered. He was going out with a very wild girl, after all. Jayden could easily get caught in a scuffle and get bruised.

"Try to make sure she doesn't. Her outfit cost a lot of money," the pale woman remarked, a devilish smile on her face.

"Make sure she doesn't get into a fight?" Bokuden mumbled. It sounded like the impossible, especially if Jayden got some nutty idea in her head.

"Yes. She is to come back here unmarked and don't keep her out too late. I get really suspicious about stuff like that," Shego said. "I don't think you want that, right?"

Bokuden gulped and shook his head. "No, ma'am."

The green-skinned woman nodded and smiled. "Good, and also, if this dating thing works out between you two, no more sneaking into her room late at night or I'm going to think something's going on. You don't want that, right?"

The blonde boy looked totally aghast; Shego might as well have told him that she was going to skin him alive and then eat his flesh from the look on his face. He had a feeling that she probably would do that if he did not heed her warning and cease sneaking into Jayden's room. He could not believe that she knew, which she could tell and why she was smiling like she was Satan in the flesh. She patted him in the chest and let him go back to his parents. He appeared rather nervous.

"Don't worry, Bo. You're an honorable man and Shego knows that," Yori reminded her son as she fiddled with his buttons.

Bokuden's jacket was buttoned up, showing off his golden buttons that had dragons painted on them in black. His jacket had Mandarin collar; his white shirt on the inside was the same. Yori ran a hand down his white jacket, as if she was brushing away dust that was not there.

"You look very handsome," Yori said with a proud smile. The young man blushed a bit.

"Thanks, Ma," Bokuden muttered.

"Don't let Jade talk you into messing the suit up," Ron remarked with a smile and light laugh.

Bokuden laughed a bit. "I'll try my best not to."

"You know what, actually, don't let Jade talk you into just about anything beyond dancing and having dinner," Ron commented after thinking about it for a moment. He did not even want to imagine what might happen with that group at the prom, especially if anyone of those girls got some crazy idea in her head.

"Ah, can we get moving!" Aztek complained from his seat on the couch, which earned him a whack in the hit from his date. His face scrunched up for a moment, disgruntled from being struck.

"You promised to behave," Raziya scolded him.

Aztek simply made a face while waving Raziya off. She silently admitted that he looked good when he was not covered in layers of grime. He was dressed in a three-piece cream colored suit with a white shirt. The suit had been altered to fit him and his slightly awkward frame. He did wear the suit well and had entered the house as if he was on top of the world. Really, no one could tell him anything because he knew that he looked good.

"Okay, but seriously, why aren't we leaving yet?" Aztek inquired. Patience had never been his strong point. He was not even really looking forward to the prom, thinking that it was just going to be a night of boring dancing and slight behaving; he was going to mess with Raziya despite his promises of behaving.

"Look around the room and tell me if you see Jade and then you'll have your answer," Raziya countered.

Aztek made a mocking face with a hand gesture that earned him another hit. He was ready to threaten her that if she hit him again, he was going to go home, but he honestly did not want to go home. He wanted to go out with Raziya, which he chalked up to just wanting to bug her like always. That was the only way he could explain it because he knew he was not looking forward to dancing and hanging out, which was something they could do at anytime.

Aztek would have continued complaining, but suddenly Felix came over to him. He smiled a bit nervously, but felt a little better when he saw his mother pulling Raziya aside. It seemed that there were a lot of talks going on.

"Aztek, I'm going to be blunt about this one," Felix said to the young man. "Razi is my only child and my pride and joy, you disrespect her at any point tonight and I'm going to put your brain into a cleaning robot," he promised.

The onyx-eyed teenager laughed out of anxiety. He had no doubt that Felix would do such a thing. Well, it was a good thing that he had no plans to do anything with Raziya.

"Don't worry, sir. I think Razi's really gross and wouldn't touch her unless I've been rolling in mud first," Aztek declared with a proud grin.

Felix shook his head. He was actually certain that Aztek would not do anything to Raziya, just like every other parent was about their daughters' dates. It was just that they were not used to sending their girls off for a whole night when danger was not involved. It was a bit nerve-wrecking. Betty actually had that anxious feeling for both her son and daughter, which was why she was now talking to Raziya.

"Don't corrupt the boy on this night out," Betty ordered Raziya.

"Please, in his dreams," Raziya scoffed, rolling her eyes too. "I wouldn't touch him with a ten foot pole considering the fact that he'd probably give the pole the Plague."

"I know, just don't…" Betty said.

Raziya nodded to show that she understood; she guessed that she was getting the talk because she was the older one between her and her date. She did not feel too bad about being a year older than Aztek and going to the prom with him. She was mostly worried about him keeping his word and behaving. She went back over to him when Betty set her free.

"Why the hell is it always one of you girls that make us late?" Aztek griped. He was making the blue-eyed girl feel like she knew how the little experiment was going to end already.

"Because some of us care about how we look," Raziya commented, rolling her eyes.

"Jade cares about how she looks?" Aztek inquired incredulously. Jayden was a sixteen-year-old girl that still wore Care Bears on most of her clothing. To him, that was not a sign of a person too concerned about how she looked to the outside world.

"Touché," Raziya conceded the battle right there. She wondered what Jayden could be up to. She did not have to wonder long.

"Mom, get away from me with that thing!" Jayden hollered as she practically flew down the stairs to escape Kim. It was a bit surprising that she could move so swiftly in the shoes that she had on.

"Sweetie, just let me do your eyebrows!" Kim called.

"No!" Jayden cried out. "Mommy, stop her!" the teen begged while dashing into the living room and looking to hide behind her Mommy.

"Shego, hold her!" Kim shouted as she hit the bottom of the stairs.

Shego acted as if she did not know what was going on and did not move to hold or hide Jayden. The teen's usual baggy and Care Bear-covered clothing was abandoned for the night for an elegant emerald green dress that went down to her ankles. Her dress was held up by straps that crisscrossed around her back. Her hair was done up in a bun with bang in the front that was swept to the right side of her head. She circled her Mommy, trying to avoid her Mom. Jayden easily moved around in the black, heeled sandals that she was sporting.

"Jade cleans up better than you do," Raziya remarked with a teasing smile, speaking to Aztek.

"I think that's a clone they bring out for special occasions. No way Jade looks that much like a girl just from putting a dress on," Aztek argued with a laugh. He was shocked to see that Jayden actually had a real figure and he was going to make fun of her later on…after he was certain it would not get him slapped by Raziya or Jayden.

"Her shoes are really cute," Mayah said to Raziya, referring to Jayden.

"Will you two shut up about shoes!" Aztek groaned.

"Why? If you must know, your shoes are hot too," Raziya informed him. Although she was telling the truth in her opinion, she said it just to bother him. It seemed like everyone had brought out their best shoes, which seemed right since they were all in their best clothing.

"Mommy, yell at her," Jayden whined to Shego, talking about Kim. She pointed at her redheaded parent while making sure to continue avoiding her.

"I'm going to yell at both of you if you don't stop this nonsense. The limo's outside waiting, after all," Shego pointed out.

"Just let me do your eyebrows, baby," Kim pled with their daughter.

"No, I'm sick of the makeup thing. Do Mayah's eyebrows!" Jayden suggested.

"My eyebrows are done and they look fucking great," Mayah commented with a shameless smile.

"Okay, okay, okay! Enough of that! Let's take pictures of the cute couples," Betty said and then she glanced over at Todd. "Or girls and their escorts," she added.

All of the teens, plus Todd, lined up for several pictures from all directions it seemed. They took pictures altogether as a group, as couples, individual pictures, just the girls, just the boys, and several other various shots that included Mayah posing with Chyna. Todd took a picture with Jayden too. They preceded outside, where pictures continued being taken on the lawn and in front of the waiting limo. They even took pictures with their parents. It took them over an hour to make into the car. As the parents watched the car drive off, they sighed, realizing that they had just made it passed one of many milestones that were to come that year.

They were going to have to watch the crew graduate in a few weeks. They were going to have to send them off to college too. They were going to have to let go. Their kids had grown up.

--------------

The end. Really.

I want to thank everyone who took the time to read this series, even though some of the most frustrating points when I know quite a few people jumped ship on it. I hope you all enjoyed the ride as much as I did. I also want to thank my main beta-reader, Mouse who has been here since The Gods Must Be Laughing and has been sticking to me ever since, helping me get ideas as well as proofreading my work. Also, I want to thank Claymourne, who beta-read through The Gods Must Be Laughing.

If you still have questions about the universe, feel free to ask. I'm not opposed to writing a few short stories in the universe, but there will be no more long, almost-epic sized stories for this universe. This was it.

Thank you all again. Until the next story, I've got to return to my little padded room and straitjacket. So, hasta…


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